The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Paper Snowflake

Do you wanna make a snowflake?  Here's how I like to do it.

I start with a square piece of paper, and for these recent ones I used tracing paper, which is (or seems to be) thinner than regular paper and creases nicely during folding.

I've got a lot of pictures for you - I hope they help.

Oh!  It also helps to have very sharp scissors.  

Here we go...

Fold the paper in half on the diagonal.

Find the midpoint on the long side and fold one end of the paper triangle over to the opposite side.  You're trying to divide this triangle into three smaller triangles with equal sized angles at the base. Why three?  Because snowflakes are hexagons.  Dividing this first triangle into three right now gives you your six points/six sides when you unfold the final product.  

When you are happy with your three angles, crease the sides where you divided the larger triangle into smaller ones.

Your paper should now look like this.  (above)

And then fold that triangle in half, length-wise.  Crease the new fold.

Now hold your multiple-fold paper up to the light so you can admire all the pretty layers.

Here's what your triangle should look like when you unfold to that very first triangle.  There are 6 smaller triangle sections within the first triangle.  

Now for the snipping.  I like to start by snipping a little bit of the point off.  You don't have to if you don't want to.  It's just my personal preference.  

So here's my folded triangle with the tip cut off, on an angle.  And these are my pretty little very sharp new scissors that I bought just for snowflake making and this post.

Now you can start making other little snips along the sides.  Just be careful not to cut all the way across, or too close to the opposite side, so you don't chop off half of your work.

When you get near the wide end of the triangle, you're reaching the part that you looked at when you held your folded paper up to the light.  The paper will have fewer complete layers from here on out, so whatever you snip will not show up around the whole snowflake.  At this point I like to trim these ends off so I'm left with JUST the complete layers.

Then you can continue with your snipping until you have done as much as you can or want to do. 

Time to unfold!

Ta-da!  Like unwrapping a gift, sort of.  Take a moment to marvel at your work.

I like to put my snowflake in a heavy book to flatten out the creases.  A day in the book should do it.  

So that's my snowflake.  It looks whiter because I lightly taped it to a piece of cardstock paper and traced it all, then cut all the holes and sides with an x-acto knife to make a template for other creative projects.  I'm working on a post for that, and when I'm happy with it I'll share.

I made a ton of these at some point many years ago, and my parents taped them to a window in our kitchen.  Or maybe they hung them somehow.  Less tape to scrape off the window later.  Anyway, you can do that, or hang them on your Christmas tree, or mail them to someone who lives in a warmer climate and doesn't get to see snowflakes, or whatever you like.  

Have fun!

Where to Start

That's Otis high atop my yarn hutch.  

I have nothing to say about him really.  I just wanted a picture for this post and others I was looking at were too specific.  I'd have to write something about the picture instead of what I'd planned to write about, you know?

It's one of my days off today.  I'm home, the kids are at school, my husband is at work.  My plan, my desire, my thing I was so looking forward to, was to just do something creative all day until school lets out and my wife/mother life takes over.

So many projects to choose from.  And I don't know where to start.  I really don't.  And now it's NOON already!  

I started out by pulling mostly everything out of the closet in the basement where we store holiday stuff.  Mostly Christmas decorations, but also the few Thanksgiving related items and Halloween things that don't get trotted out to the same degree now that the kids are older.  

I was looking for snowflakes.

A ton of years ago I folded paper and snipped bits of the paper away and unfolded the paper into a paper snowflake.  I did this a lot of times, and pressed the snowflakes flat in a heavy book.  I was proud of my snowflakes because they were delicate and beautiful, AND - because I am kind of annoyingly obsessive about some things, they are 6-pointed snowflakes - just like real ones.  No easy fold-in-half-and-in-half-again eight-pointed "snowflakes" for me.  I would fold the paper in half and then in thirds into a pie-shaped piece and then fold THAT in half, all the better to make my snowflakes as intricate as possible.  I had very sharp small scissors and I think I used to use tracing paper because it was thinner and easier to cut through multiple layers.

Anyway, I remember hanging them in the windows at my parents' house, and they continued doing that over the years until they moved to a smaller house and the snowflakes got packed away.  After Dad died and my sister and I cleaned things out of the house, I found them and brought them home.

At least, I think I did.  I must have.  I wouldn't toss them out after they'd been preserved for so long.  Would I?  

I don't know.  I sometimes throw things away in the heat or despair of the moment and then come to regret the impulse.

So back to the snowflakes.  I wanted them because after digging through all those unfinished bits and pieces of fabric projects (see previous post) I thought I'd go back to a project I'd started another ton of years ago, back when I was doing a lot of hand sewing.  I thought I'd make a series of Christmas stockings in white satin, with trapunto snowflakes stitched into the leg part of the stocking.  They'd be pretty and blah-blah-blah and anyway I never finished them.  But I kept them so that Some Day I could.  Over the weekend, Some Day peeked in the doorway and said "pssssst!" to me.  That is actually why I'd started digging through the bin that had all that unfinished stuff.  I thought maybe they were in there.  They weren't.  I'd thought I could finish them.  Or at least do something with those stitched snowflake sections.

So when I couldn't find them, I thought Hey!  I'll just find those snowflakes I made, and dig out some shiny fabric and trace the snowflakes onto muslin and baste that to the back of the shiny fabric and then stitch the outline of the snowflake and then puff up the branches of the snowflake with yarn to give it some dimension and then turn that fabric piece into, I don't know, a pillow or ornament or something.

But I can't find the snowflakes.  I looked through our boxes of Christmas stuff, where the snowflakes LOGICALLY should have been, but I couldn't find them.  So I put all the boxes back.  

But I kept out the shiny fabric.

Two dresses.  Two wedding dresses.  One is mine.  The other was my mother's and then my sister's. 

We aren't going to wear them again.  And our daughters will most likely want to 

(Okay, I'm just interrupting myself to say I've got Air Force One (the movie) on tv right now and I love this movie and Harrison Ford is SO fabulous at looking uncertain and desperately trying to plan his next move and I love this movie and I'm so glad it's on Amazon Prime.)

Anyway.  I've looked on Pinterest for ideas of what to do with all this wedding dress fabric (because there's a lot of fabric to these dresses) and I'm thinking some of each dress will be incorporated into quilts for all four kids, at the very least.  (My sister's two and my two.)  And also some will be incorporated into a quilt or something for my sister and for me.  And I figured I could maybe use some of the fabric to make a few snowflake-embellished pieces.

I have the dresses.  But I'm reluctant to start cutting them up just yet, since I don't have a clear plan for any of those projects just yet.  And can't do the snowflakes.

I kept looking for the snowflakes.  Boxes of pictures and old mother's day cards and coins my dad's father used to find on his walks and send from Arizona to his granddaughters.  Old partly filled notebooks.  More pictures.  More pictures.  I really need to organize them.  But how?  By person?  By year?  By this side of the family and that?  But then what about the intersections?  Which box do they go in?  Should I make duplicates of everything so when my kids are going through this same thing years (and hopefully more years) from now, they'll each have a complete set?

And I didn't want to sort pictures today anyway.  I wanted to do something with fabric or yarn.  Fabric.  

I think I will probably sew a bunch of pieces for that double wedding ring quilt I'd started back in the day.  

But then what?  

I have so many projects I want to work on.  About half a dozen quilts in need of repair.  Several crocheted blankets in various stages of completion (or incompletion thus far), plus one I'm knitting.  And all those unfinished bits of other projects I found in the bin the other day when I was looking for - yep, those snowflakes.

There are also some reorganizational things I want to do to this blog but they will be time-consuming, too.

So, where to start? 

I don't know which thing to tackle first.  I feel pulled in a multitude of directions.

I'm thinking maybe it would be sensible to repair the Christmas quilt first, since it's the middle of November and that would sort of make sense, right?  

But I also want to keep going with the double wedding ring quilt.  So many small pieces.  

And I really like having some yarny thing to work on because it's quieter than the sewing machine and sometimes I just need something simple and repetitive to work on.

And  -  well, you see my problem.

So I'm asking you.  How do YUOU decide what to do next?

Unfinished Business

I bought a new sewing machine back in February or March; one I could use for heavy-duty projects involving denim or leather or the like.  I found it a place on my work table - actually on my Dad's old desk - and I unpacked all the accessories into a drawer - and there it sat.  

This is a silly habit of mine sometimes.  I get a new thing and then set it aside until I get used to having it around, and only then will I start acquainting myself with its features.  It is really silly.

Anyway, the other day I finally wound a bobbin and threaded the needle and stitched some fabric together.

The project in the above picture is the pieces of a double wedding ring quilt I decided to tackle within a year or so  after Bill and I were married.  At the time I just worked, and we had no children.  I had time.  And then we went and had children, and all my pieces of fabric took a back seat.  And then a spot in my mental attic.  Under luggage and old furniture and dust.  And eventually the carpal tunnel business started bothering me and holding a needle and stitching all those little pieces by hand (because that was the other thing - I was going to do it all by hand) wasn't a lot of fun.  And I got interested in other things, and so on and so on.  Life.

But I kept all the bits and pieces, intending - some day - to finish it.

After the surgery on my hands almost a year ago, I discovered I could hold a skinny needle and work pins and it didn't bother me at all!!  I was EXTREMELY happy.  I set to work piecing the small "ring" pieces together and it was wonderful to be doing something I'd loved to do years ago.  Like Dorothy walking out of her sepia-toned house and into technicolor OZ, 

But you know what?  No matter how great my hands are now (and they are), it's still a LOT of stitching and I still don't have all the time in the world any more.  I just want to get it done.  So - to the sewing machine!

And I have to say, it's really fun to work up the pieces.  I pin a batch, sew them up, pull the pins, and iron them flat.  Hard to explain how joyful this makes me.  But it does.  I love the smell of damp, hot fabric as I iron down the seams. I even like ironing clothes, but making a quilt is way more fun.

This morning I opened a big Rubbermaid tote and dug in.  I was looking for another old sewing project in particular (which I didn't find) but I found a whole bunch of others.  On one hand, it's overwhelming.  I don't even remember what my game plan was for some of these patterns and fabrics.  But on the other hand, I'm excited.  Where to start???  (I know, I know.  I'm working on the double wedding ring quilt.  Maybe I should start - and finish - there?)

Here are a few pictures of some of the chaos...

Okay, well this is not unfinished.  This is an embroidered picture on a pair of my shorts that I did back in junior high or high school, I imagine.  That person on top of the front mountain is a tiny little Scotsman playing the bagpipes.  I'm pretty sure I was pleased with my work, otherwise I wouldn't have saved them all these years.

This is a sample piece from a workshop I attended one summer weekend in Maine.  There was a class I took in trapunto, which is a sort of filled stitching - you use bits of stuffing or pieces of yarn or cording to add dimension to the quilted stitches.  Pretty cool stuff.

I also learned to do applique using freezer paper, a process I loved and utilized in a lot of projects after that class. 

I concocted these squares with the intent, I think, of turning them into big pillows.  the stars and the letters are all applique.

So were the tulips on this apron...no, wait, never mind that, I guess I didn't take a picture, or I deleted it.  

And this.  It's hard to see, but this is a blend of trapunto and applique, and it's also copied from the cover of the Broadway soundtrack album for Evita.  It was meant to be (and still is!) part of a quilt for a great friend of mine in college and after who HATED the music and suffered a lot at my hands and my record player.  I do not apologize.  It was educational.

Anyway, here are a couple of other squares meant for the same quilt:

Here we have a log cabin variation with denim and flannel on one half, taffeta (I think) and velvet on the other half.  The story involves this dear friend and a middle of the night trip to the grocery store with him in denim and flannel and me in a gorgeous dress with a black velvet strapless bodice and a shimmery blue skirt (that flared out thanks to the layers of tulle underneath).  I wore heels, and my hair was up in a bun and my makeup was over the top.  We put our groceries (we shared a house with another friend, so grocery shopping together was not unusual) in our cart and strolled up and down the aisles (well, I tottered around on my heels, which I very rarely wore) and acted as though we looked perfectly normal.  And I guess "we" is incorrect - I'm the one who had to pretend.  

And this is a game of cribbage. I think we both learned as kids. In my house it was a Sunday afternoon event - various cribbage games between my sister and I and our parents, with some sort of sport playing on the tv and cheddar cheese and Saltines and glasses of ginger ale.  Ginger ale for us kids.  I don't know what my parents had. So anyway, my friend, Ralph, and I played go-for-the-jugular cribbage games way back when, and if you look closely at the faux wooden board above you can see the word "blaze" - something we'd say when one of us, usually me, ahem, scored a lot of points in a hand and blazed past the other person's marker.  

I have a few other squares but these three are my favorites.

And that's enough for now - time to sew some fabric together before the rest of the day gets away from me.

 

Trying to Find My Compass

Last week my companions, Worry, Anxiety, Depression, and Fear, got together and threw a party in my brain.  In addition to my usual stress-inducing thoughts, I started wondering what the purpose of life was.  Specifically, my life, naturally, but also, just our lives in general.  But mostly mine.  I got stuck thinking - wondering - why am I here?  What am I supposed to be doing?  With my life?  Am I supposed to be trying to do something GREAT?  And if I am, how come I haven't figured it out yet?  Should I have majored in something different in college?  After I've been dead a generation or two, will anyone remember me?  And for what?  At my worst, I imagine I'd be remembered as that one who never figured out what to do with herself and FAILED AT LIVING. 

Yes, that's what I was immersed in.  The belief that I've done everything WRONG and I'm running out of time to do things right.  To leave a mark - a good one.  To matter.

It was a fun party, I tell you.  It went on for days, swirling around in my mind, creating a giant rock (Anxiety's work) in my chest and leading me at one point to make a list in my phone of all the things I was worrying about at that moment one day at work.  I just had to get it out of my head for a minute.  And yes, writing (typing) it down kind of helped.  I just made a list of items, each one starting with "I worry that - " and after I downloaded all that mess I went back to work and my day improved.  

Later, at home, I re-read the list.  And amid my list of all sorts of fears and worries about me and family members and me again, and areas where I fall short, and belief that I'm a failure a lot of the time, and even more miserable stuff I just don't feel like sharing because it sounds TOO melodramatic when it's not actually going on in my head, I read this:

        "I'm worried my Judas don't eat enough vegetables"

Huh?

I don't write like that.  I'd have used "doesn't" instead of "don't."  

And who is Judas?  MY Judas?  (I ran through the list of our pets' names, just to be sure, though they're all carnivores so vegetables aren't high on any of their dietary needs)

WHO TYPED THIS IN MY PHONE???

And then, oh yeah! In among all the giant towering fears was my motherly concern that my teen-aged CHILDREN don't eat enough vegetables.  Somehow Autocorrect decided to change that, and Autocorrect has a very weird alternate-word selection process.

Mystery solved.

And - best of all - it made me laugh.  

That's my favorite thing. The unexpected laugh.

(Side note:  I know, double spacing after the end of a sentence is so outdated even dinosaurs didn't do it, but it's how I learned to type and it's just a really, really hard habit to break, so please forgive me forever.)

~~~

Anyway, here's the other story I wanted to tell you.

During all the "I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing!!!!" stuff going on in my head recently, I got a larger than business sized envelope in the mail with something in it.  The Wells Fargo Wagon song naturally began to play in my head, complete with Ron Howard's young lisp, because hey, whatever was in the envelope COULD be something special just for me.  

I made sure it was for me - and yes, there was my name, right there.  But the line below my name was Barefoot Kitchen Witch, and that was unexpected.  My writing here has been sporadic at best over the past bunch of years, so why anything should come with the name of my cobwebby site on it was puzzling.

And then I looked at the corner of the envelope - and it was from The National Pen Company.  ?

So I opened it and there was a blue pen with BAREFOOT KITCHEN WITCH on the side and my town and state and zip code below it.  

Also in the envelope was an order form so I could order a hundred or five hundred or a thousand of these pens - for my clients - at 39 cents a pen.  I would only get this special price for the initial order, mind you.  Any subsequent orders would cost me a whopping 99 cents per pen.  So I should ACT NOW!

Julia wanted me to order a bunch of them because like me she is made happy by office supplies.  I told her I'm not ordering a bunch of pens, and she tried to get Alex to go along with her plan - "Alex, you need pens, right???" and he didn't even look at her when he said "No, Julia, I don't need any pens."

So I'm not ordering a bunch of pens for 39 cents each, and I'm not giving Julia that one pen, even though she really really likes it.  I'm keeping it.

And here's why.  I think my mom sent it.  I know it came from The National Pen Company in Shelbyville, TN.  She had to do that so the post office would process it.  I don't think they process stuff from The Afterlife, or The Spirit Realm, or Heaven, or places like that, because who could they charge for postage?  

Anyway, my mom was always supportive of anything I wrote.  So I think she saw me spinning around in my fears and worries and wanted to give me a bit of a nudge so I'd at least stop spinning and do SOMETHING, rather then spend all my time worrying that if I did X, it would be the wrong thing, so maybe I should do Y, or Z, but what if I did, and it turned out X was really the right thing all along? 

I have the same problem choosing my meals at restaurants. It would be so much simpler if I was a picky eater.

Anyway, thanks, Mom, for the nudge and the pen. And if you can figure out a way to send Julia a special pen of her own, she'd be really happy.  But I guess that'll be my job one day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crocheting - Temperature Blanket 2017 Part 2 May June July August

This is the second temperature blanket from 2017. You can see the first one here.  I'm not planning to make the third.  I don't need to.  I've done two.  That's enough for me.  

The pattern for both is the Moss Stitch, or Granite Stitch, or Linen Stitch.  Same stitch, different names.  Very easy.  Single crochet and chain, repeated all the way across.  Then in the subsequent rows you single crochet into the space where the chain was in the previous row.  This way the colors from one row dip into the next.  On one hand I feel like I need to branch out and use different patterns, but on the other hand, I really, really like the effect.

I've actually got a couple other blankets in the works.  One will eventually be a sampler, and the color scheme is warmer - reds, oranges, peaches, yellows - I take yarn with me when I go to Julia's softball games, and learn a stitch and make some squares with that stitch or pattern in a few different colors.  Small, portable projects.

I've also got a blanket I started for a family member who was in a bad car accident and that's a long story which I'll tell some day but not yet.

And, because I need to pursue the temperature blanket in Moss stitch but not in 2017 any more, I came up with another idea.  And, like most of my ideas, there is a long preamble.

A while back I crocheted an afghan for each of my kids.  

This is Alex's:

And this is Julia's:

For Julia's, she picked the color scheme and we both picked yarns.  The whole thing is just in single crochet, and I used up a whole skein at a time.  The yarn is Red Heart Super Saver.

For Alex's, I used a bulkier yarn.  He gave the ok on the colors, and I made up the layout.  I used half double crochet, back loop only.  It's a heavy blanket.  And Alex's bedroom is small and in the winter, it's actually pretty warm in there.  So the blanket is too heavy.  He didn't use it, and eventually Julia snagged it.  She likes to take them.  At the moment she also has the second temperature blanket in her room, even though she doesn't need it now that the weather is warm and she already has a comforter, a fleece blanket, and, now, three afghans in her possession.

Anyway, I told Alex I still want to make him a blanket, and he said he liked the weight and feel of the temperature blankets.  He likes blues, so I picked out a variety of shades for him to choose from.  And I am using the moss stitch again, because.

Here's a bit of it:

Rather than do a whole year, like the year he was born, I decided to do something more personal.  I'm using the high temperatures from my pregnancy.  It's approximate, based on my original due date and the 40 weeks leading up to that, plus the few days past the due date until his actual birth date.  So it's 40 weeks and three days of temperatures.  283 days.  283 rows.  12 colors, plus a black foundation chain.  I'll use black as the border around the other three sides, too.

The blues are soothing and the yarn is soft.  As I crochet the rows, I think about when I was pregnant with Alex, and try to work the joy of memory into every stitch.

Oh, and the yarns I'm using are Caron Simply Soft, Premiere Deborah Norville Everyday, and Bernat Simply Soft.  Yeah, the Everyday is thicker than the other two, but not by much and it's not noticeable in the afghans.  (Same combination of brands were used in the other temperature blankets.)  And the hook is Susan Bates, H/5mm.  I like this one because the tip is a little pointier than some of the other brands and it pokes into the yarn smoothly.

That's about it.

I briefly - very briefly - thought about writing a tutorial, with lots of pictures of course (like my old cooking posts), about doing the moss stitch, but there are plenty of tutorials out there that are easy to follow.  I used this one from Moogly.

I'll post more pictures as this afghan grows.  

 

 

 

Catching Up

I just finished reading the late Sue Grafton's final book, "Y is for Yesterday."  I'd put off reading it.  I've followed the Kinsey Millhone series for years and years, ever since I was fresh out of college and employed at B. Dalton Booksellers at a mall outside of Hartford and my boss introduced me to the series.  I used to own them all, but over time I've downsized a lot of things, including books, for various reasons, and I don't think I have any of them any more except, now, this last book.

Sue Grafton died in 2017 as far too many people do - after battling cancer.  I was...I don't know the word...it's not "crushed" or "devastated" - nothing so debilitating - but, well, really, really sad when I found out she'd died.  Not so much because her famous alphabet series of mysteries was incomplete, but because her books were woven into my life, my relationship with my mother, my childhood, books, my grandfather...my history, I guess, and now that thread has been cut.

When I was a kid - I don't even remember how young - my mother gave me a used copy of the first Trixie Belden book.  It was hardcover, with some illustrations, slightly faded pages, and a wonderfully musty old book smell.  I was a reader.  I was shy.  I was - though I don't know if the word was tossed around back then - an introvert.  And a tomboy.  The book was a perfect gift.  I remember looking at the illustrations and thinking that the person with the short, curly hair was a boy and the person with the shoulder-length bob and dress must be this girl, Trixie.  But no, Trixie was the one with the short curly hair.  She was imperfect.  She had chores.  She complained.  She was like a normal person, compared to Nancy Drew.  I couldn't relate at all to Nancy.  For one thing, she was older, she had a rich father, and she could drive, and she had a boyfriend.  Nothing there I could relate to.  But Trixie - she wasn't as shy as I was, but she was only 13, so much closer in age, and like I said, she had chores to do, and she complained.  In fact, that's how the book opens - something like this - 

"Oh, Moms," Trixie wailed, "I'll just die if I don't have a horse!"

(I wanted a horse, too!)

And her mother says something like "You declared you'd suffer the same fate if we didn't buy you a bike three years ago, remember?"

They were outside, her mom was weeding the garden.  Trixie "picked up a fat little worm, watched it wriggle around in the palm of her hand, then gently let it go" - or something like that.  My mom had a garden.  I wasn't afraid to pick up worms.  Or toads.  Or grasshoppers or crickets.  

Trixie never gets a horse of her own (neither did I), but she gets a rich friend (the girl in the dress in the illustrations) who has horses, and they have adventures, and they don't age more than a year or so.  And they solve mysteries.

I loved these books.  I craved them.  And my Mom did everything in her power to add to the collection.  They weren't wildly popular, and they weren't always easy to find.  I remember any time we went on any sort of vacation (which was rare), I would search the book stores for any missing copies in my collection.  My mother hunted them down for Christmas and my birthday.  I was horribly possessive of these treasures, to the point that I didn't want my sister to read them (not that she had any interest in them anyway) and when she made friends with a couple of girls in junior high who !!! also read Trixie Belden, I was thrown into a pathetic panic, afraid that because of them Mere would now want to read these incredible books and I would have to share them with her.  I was Gollum, and the Trixie Belden mystery series was my Precious.  I even hid the whole set up in the attic for a time.

I was awful.

Anyway, jumping ahead a whole bunch of years, during which time I like to think I matured and relaxed a bit but probably not, when I started reading Sue Grafton's books, I felt the same connection to the character of Kinsey Millhone.  Not entirely - I was still shy, I didn't have the same history - but there were things I could relate to.  She was happy when she could spend a whole weekend home, reading a book.  She didn't wear makeup and she cut her own hair.  I didn't like wearing makeup really, and never felt like I did it right, and while I didn't cut my own hair, I was at my best (I eventually discovered) when I just had it tied back in a pony tail.  I admired her relatively simple life.  I admired her independence.  I just liked her.  I liked to think that if she was real and we lived in the same neighborhood and somehow knew each other we could meet for coffee every once in a while, even though we tended to keep to ourselves most of the time.

My Mom read the books, too.  I'd loan them to her, plus anything else I was reading.  Working in a bookstore was wonderful - access to everything and an employee discount to aid in the addiction.

I got my reading gene from my mother, who got it from her father.  I don't know where it came from before that.  All three of us liked murder mysteries, and in addition to Trixie Belden and, yes, I read all the Nancy Drew stuff, too, I also read the Toff books by John Creasy, the Saint series by Leslie Charteris, and a bunch of Agatha Christie's books.  These were while I was in junior high and high school.  Around the time I was starting to read Sue Grafton, I also met Patricia Cornwell's books and those of Sara Paretsky.  And, later, Faye Kellerman.  And others.  But those are the main ones.  

I remember going to the library regularly as a kid, usually with my mom, but also on my own or with my best friend on our bikes in the summer.  I read a lot.  When I was in high school my mom and I would go so she could pick out books to bring for my grandfather, her father, to read, especially after his heart attack.  He could do a whole lot at that point, but he could devour books.  His short term memory had been affected, so reading the same books exact books every few weeks didn't matter.  I think it was the familiar language, the familiar characters, the familiar (English) settings that probably made him feel comfortable.  

I am like that too.  Well, minus the heart attack and the advanced age.  There is a comfort in reading a series and meeting up with familiar characters.  They are a bit like old friends.  Maybe that's what I found appealing.  They gave me just enough of a (pretend) social life without my having to really interact with people too much.  I was fine at work, but things like parties or any sort of get-together where you were just supposed to relax and talk were never relaxing for me.  Still aren't, unless I'm mentally prepared before I go or it's with people I've known forever.

In more recent years I hadn't faithfully bought each new Kinsey Millhone mystery the day it came out like I'd done before.  I think the addition of a husband and children slowed that down for me.  I think I put away some of myself for a whole bunch of years and I've only recently started unpacking that part of me again.  My kids are (gulp) both in high school (wait, what??) and they are doing their own things a lot and I have found myself with a bit more time on my hands and an odd feeling of not knowing what to do with myself or who I am or what I'm supposed to be. 

The deaths of both my parents within the last five and a half years has also served to shake me up and wake me up.  Trying to clean out their house was overwhelming, but interesting at times, as my sister and I dug through countless boxes of stuff from our childhood, our parents' childhoods, our lives as a family, just...everything.  I don't think my mother ever wanted to part with anything.  She was an only child and all her cousins and aunts and uncles were in England; maybe it was her way of having a bigger family. At times it felt like she would have preferred to live over there.  Especially after her parents had both passed away.  Hearing English accents was probably comforting in a way our American voices could never be, no matter what words we said.

At times over the years when I've been especially depressed I have given away my books.  At first, just the books I truly didn't need or plan to ever read again, but then, eventually, the books I loved.  Maybe it was an attempt to get rid of parts of me I didn't like, in an effort to like whatever was left.  Maybe it was a way to fight the pain I already felt and couldn't pin down with a pain that was very real and very identifiable - getting rid of books - characters - friends - who were safe and comforting at times in my life.  Maybe even they couldn't help me get away from the mean voices I'd allowed in my head, so why keep them around, collecting dust, pages fading, taking up space?  My kids don't seem to have inherited the reading gene either.  Maybe I didn't read to them enough.  Maybe it was my fault somehow that they didn't enjoy - need - books the way I did.  Maybe my attachment to all these books wasn't healthy, maybe that was part of my problem - preferring the worlds in books to the real world around me - so maybe I needed to get rid of these distractions so I could do a better job of being a person.  

I don't know.  But that's what I did.  I got rid of books.  If I think about it too much it hurts.  But I understand, sort of, why I did it.  And it's over and done.  I could rebuild my library, which is appealing because it's so nice to have books...but then I think about the endlessness of cleaning out all the stuff in my parents' house...and I don't want to leave that sort of experience for my kids.

So I occasionally buy a book.  

I know, I can also go to the library.

But you know what?  I don't enjoy it like I used to.  When I was growing up, I LOVED our library.  It was old and mysterious and full of dark wood and musty book smells and it was quiet and a teeny bit scary for some reason.  Like there could be ghostly characters that stepped out of the pages when no one was around and wandered from room to room, stretching their folded limbs and checking out the latest bestsellers.  

That library has changed.  It is bright and clean smelling and has lots of computers available.  There is nothing dark or musty or cozy or scary about it at all.  And the library closest to my house here is just the same.  There are probably comfy chairs I could sink into for an hour or two with a book I might want to bring home for two weeks (if that) to finish if I like it...but the whole space is too bright.  Too busy.  Not enough dark wood.  There is nothing intimate about the experience.  I guess that's what I'm getting at.  The lack of intimacy in these modern libraries.  How can you develop a good relationship with a book with all these bright lights and people everywhere and desks and computers?  There should be cozy corners and dark nooks, and at least a hint of a musty old book.  Maybe Yankee candle could work on that....

I could probably explore that idea for many paragraphs but I have already been babbling on for a while now.

I finished Sue Grafton's final book, "Y is for Yesterday," a little while ago.  I'm missing my Mom, and my grandfather, and Trixie Belden, and some part of myself that I'm still trying to get back, but I'm not even sure what part it is.

All I know is I have a strong urge to start reading "A is for Alibi" and go through the whole series once more, and pretend there will still, eventually, be a Z. 

Cats and Crochet

Otis and Scratchy

Scratchy will be 11 in May, and Otis is eight months old.  I got a few pictures of them hanging out together - peacefully - this afternoon.  About four or five times a day Otis decides he needs to play, so he attacks Scratchy and they wrestle around from room to room, on and under furniture, grappling and separating, sometimes sitting, still but ready to pounce, tails lashing, eyes locked.  Otis enjoys this more than Scratchy does.  In fact, at times, Scratchy just seems so over the whole "babysitting the new kitten" thing.  He will be quietly walking across the room, minding his own cat business, when he's tackled from the side by our mini panther.  Or from above, as Otis leaps off a chair or table.  And other times, when Otis approaches head-on, Scratchy will just raise a weary paw and cuff Otis upside the head and roll him over.  I'm always rather impressed with that because until now Scratchy had been the lazy one.  I didn't know he'd have fighting skills.  But he does.  

Skills...and love.  Other times when they are locked together in simulated mortal combat, Scratchy will pause from holding half of Otis' face to rapidly lick the top of Otis' head.  And Otis will hold still for this.  Then, after this brief moment of loving care, they resume the biting and grabbing and rolling around.  Weird creatures.

Otis adores Scratchy.  We watch the two of them walking across the floor at times and Otis presses himself against Scratchy's side so they move as one.  He nudges his head under Scratchy's chin as he purrs snuggles.  Then he tries to eat Scratchy's food right out from under him.

Before we had Otis, Scratchy had his own ways of urging us to get up and feed him if one of us didn't spring out of bed when the first alarm went off.  He would chew on stuff.  Plastic stuff.  Crinkly stuff.  His favorite device in our bedroom is the thick paper tag on an extension cord on my side of the bed.  (Of course, I could just remove the tag, but it never occurs to me until, say, now.) Anyway, He would chew and chew until I finally threw myself out of bed and either booted him out of the room or gave in and fed him.  

But that hasn't been happening lately.  Instead, around oh, 4:59 or 4:19 or 3:20(!!!) in the morning I will feel a gentle little paw patting me on the face.  My cheek.  My nose.  My cheek again.  I will feel the faint tickle of whiskers against my face.  Pat, pat, pat pat.  I will hear very loud purring, relentless and adoring.  And I will feel a cold little nose bump against me.  Worst case, I will get a whiff of cat breath, but that doesn't always happen.  Just the other stuff.  And mostly the little paw patting my face - "wake up, Jayne! wake up!" - and the purring.  Then a seemingly boneless warm, silky mass will throw itself against my head.  Or under my chin.  Or against my face.  

Gentle, soft, loving, relentless.  Otis.

The other morning, after being battered about like this, I checked the time - around 3:30 - and though I was not planning to feed anyone, I did have to pee.  I got out of bed and Otis raced out of the bedroom to where Scratchy was sitting at the top of the stairs waiting.  Like he'd sent Otis in to do his old job.  Another time Scratchy didn't even bother coming upstairs.  He sat at the bottom of the stairs instead, perhaps giving Otis a bit more responsibility - not just to get me out of bed, out of the room, but to see if I could be persuaded to come downstairs to where the cat food is.

~~~

My hands (I had the surgery on my left hand on January 29th and that went just as well as the right hand) are doing very well.  The incisions have healed nicely and the right hand one is barely noticeable. They are both still rather tender to the touch, and as I type, I feel a sort of thickness on the heel of each hand where they rest against the laptop keyboard.  BUT.  The horrible numbness/tingling/other weird Carpal Tunnel sensations are gone.  Gone!  I don't even remember what the feeling was like.  Kind of like giving birth, maybe - there is no real memory of pain, just knowledge that there WAS pain.  

I have, however, developed a frozen right shoulder.  I haven't been able to raise my right arm above shoulder height, and moving it in certain ways sends sharp, stabbing pains down my arm.  Apparently this isn't uncommon in women between 40-60, and it also can occur if a person has had their arm immobilized for a period of time, and I guess because I wasn't using my right hand for a while, the freezing started.  So I've started physical therapy and after just two sessions I feel things are loosening up, so I'm pretty optimistic. 

Anyway, because my hands are doing so well, I've been gradually doing more and more crocheting.  I've got some big projects going on - several blankets.  And I've also got a LOT of yarn.  

I read an article recently - 7 Strange Questions That Help You Find Your Life Purpose - and question #7 is "If you knew you were going to die one year from today, what would you do and how would you want to be remembered?"  My thoughts in response to the question ran off in several directions, and I ended up thinking about all the stuff in the house, and how do I get rid of it, and yeah, maybe I should have Marie Kondo'd the house while I've been home for my hand surgeries, but I didn't, so I'm still just as overwhelmed with stuff as I was in December.  So I took that "one year from today" time frame and decided to focus on working my way through all the yarn I have.  I have lots of works in progress.  Crochet projects, sewing projects, jewelry-making ideas....lots to do.  So the goal is to work my way through the works in progress AND clear out my surplus of yarn and fabric and wire and beads.  Right now I'm in a joyful crocheting mood, so in between working rows on this blanket or that one, I'm making smaller projects.  So far I've used a bunch of cotton yarn to make a couple of bags and a couple of little bowls.  

Bag #1:

Otis likes to be involved in anything anyone is doing at any time ever.  Always.  Unless he's sleeping.

Bag #2:


Let me try again...

And then the bowls:

First the yellow one, which I did while Julia was at a guitar ensemble rehearsal:

Otis is clearly suspicious of it.

And then this blue one with a couple of thin ribbons woven through the crocheted stitches:

Otis is not interested in the blue bowl whatsoever.

Anyway, those are my recent little projects, and I find them very satisfying.  I use the bags for grocery shopping, and next time I make some bags I'll go smaller, as they stretch quite a bit when filled.  

For a change, my current little project is a shawl.  It's not as little as bags and bowls, but it's satisfying because I'm cranking through skeins of yarn.  I'll show it to you when I've got a little more done and it really looks like a shawl.  

That's it for now.  What's going on with you?

Lizard Hand

My stitches are out!  The Dr. took them out on the 21st, last Friday, and said I could go without a bandage, could get the hand wet, could start doing exercises to strengthen my hand and regain mobility and all that.  So - yay!  Within a couple of days the stitched area had dried up (it was kind of creepy and pale and a bit swollen from the Neosporin and bandage on it constantly) and for the last few days it's been starting to peel.  My scar looks like how our lizard looks when she starts to shed. And it itches!  It itches like crazy.

I'm doing a lot of normal things again, and two days ago we went to NH for the day so Bill and the kids could go skiing and I could hang out in the lodge and read and I actually did a very small bit of crocheting.  Two shortish rows for a hat.  And I stopped because my left hand was going numb/tingling/not happy.  My right hand, I am ecstatic to say, was not bothered at all.  I also stopped because I don't want to overdo it with the right hand, either.  So there we are.  And I didn't do any crocheting yesterday but I may try a bit again today. Yay!

This was the sky on the way home from NH, by the way.  The photo doesn't do it justice.  

~~~

I woke  up with an incredibly stiff neck on the left side and it's VERY annoying. Just wanted to share that.  

It didn't help, though.  My neck is still stiff.

~~~

Oh!  Christmas.  Well for Christmas Eve we had my husband's nephew over and his three little boys, which was fun because they're, well, little, and cute, and easily entertained by Otis (the kitten) chasing a little scrap of fabric on a stick while everyone waits for the Yorkshire Pudding to finish cooking and for dinner to be served.  

Since I'm slightly out of commission, I had some help making the dinner - Julia made the Yorkshire pudding pretty much solo, with just me telling her what to do.  And - best part - we saved some of the fat from the Roast Beef and made a second huge Yorkshire the next day.  Because there are never enough starchy leftovers.  It's either the stuffing is all gone the day after Thanksgiving, or the Yorkshire Pudding is all gone after Christmas.  This year we had plenty.

Christmas Day was a departure from the norm - we went to my sister's house for breakfast and hung out there for a while.  She and family have moved into a beautiful new house with wide plank hardwood floors, exposed beams, coziness and warmth.  She went happily crazy with the holiday decorating with beautiful touches everywhere and I really didn't want to go back to my own house.

But we did and had a lazy afternoon of leftovers and laziness.

~~~

I haven't done a whole heck of a lot of writing over the past couple of years, and I can feel it.  Stuff isn't flowing.  don't know what to type here or how to say it.  It all feels rusty and, well, kind of like my stiff neck.  I'm not the same person I was when I was writing here all the time.  I don't take pictures of the food I cook, unless it's really, really awesome.  I cook for a living, and to write about cooking now seems...pretentious.  I've learned that I know some things, but there's a lot I don't know, and plenty of people who are certainly way better at all this stuff than I am.  So writing about something old me cooked and elaborating on all the steps or whatever...who am I to tell anyone what to do or how to do it?  And the carpal tunnel messed with my hands so much that I stopped making all those fun cakes.  Stopped decorating cookies.  Nothing to write about there.  And my kids are getting older and so I am respecting their privacy now by not posting pictures.  Well, Julia probably wouldn't care - now - but might some day in the future.  So...I don't know what to write about.  But I'll figure it out.

 

 

Observations While My Hand Is Like This

*  At rest, my right hand looks like a Barbie doll hand, minus the long slender fingers and tiny but perfect manicure.  If Barbie had a short, square-handed twin, that would be me.

*  With that immobile hand, I can now do the Royal Wave pretty well.  

*  I can drive, but everything leading up to the car in forward motion has become a circus act.

*  Yesterday I needed to do something, so, of all things, I decided to do the dishes. At first I thought I'd just empty and reload the dishwasher, but that wasn't satisfying, because there were still all the pots and pans and utensils taking up space. Things I ordinarily require two hands to do. Then it occurred to me that there are people who permanently only have one hand, and presumably they do the dishes, so I should make it work. And I did! All I left in the sink were two sheet pans that needed to soak. And I was very proud of myself until I realized that hey, the only reason I'm having surgery on my hands is so OTHER people will have to do those chores. 

But it gets boring NOT doing things. And overdoing things just leaves my current working hand on fire. So I am trying to find a middle ground.

*  I really want to crochet. I have never participated in a CAL - Crochet-a-long - but I really want to do this one because even though pinks and purples aren't my thing, I love sweet peas, the pattern looks fun, and I only have at least 39 unfinished projects, so why not make it an even 40?

*  When I brush my teeth, left-handed, my right hand goes up and then moves up and down while the left is navigating my teeth, kind of the way I used to open my mouth encouragingly when spoon feeding my kids when they were babies.

*  There's a part of me that is afraid of all this time off with not much I can do. It leaves my mind with a lot of down time, and that's when my Anxieties like to slip in. They are not new ones, so they know their way around my head. They know where to hide, and wait, and gather together behind the sofa and then jump out and yell "Surprise!" Only that image makes them sound fun. I'm sure that is how they see themselves, but really they slither in with the shadows and whisper and hiss in my ears.   

At least I recognize them for what they are.

*  I watched Bruce Springsteen's one man show on Netflix the other day and I bawled my eyes out at times. Very cathartic.  

*  We have no ornaments on our Christmas tree this year because the first day the tree was inside, in the tree stand, Otis tried to climb it a bunch of times and got high enough to throw the balance off and yay! water everywhere! So the tree spent a few days outside and then we set it up and anchored it with 60 lb test fishing line from one end of the (heavy) curtain rod, looped around the trunk, to the other end of the curtain rod.  We put white lights on the tree and that's it. Otis curls up - actually both cats curl up - on the blanket we are using as a tree skirt, and all is calm, all is upright.

Okay, that's about enough excitement for one day. 

I'll talk to you again soon.

 

One Week In

I can make do pretty well left-handed with most tasks.  It's not pretty, though.  Last night eating soup I realized that I'm about as tidy as a toddler, but most of the important stuff made it into my mouth, so it's ok.

The surgery was exactly a week ago, and then on Friday I went back for my post-op visit and the original bandage was removed and I got to see my bruised hand and the five stitches at the base of my palm.  Very pretty.

The surgeon told me I could start moving my fingers a bit, and he put a dollop of bacitracin along my incision and slapped (okay, gently placed) a giant band-aid over that and said I could change that as little as once a day or as often as I liked, and I could get my hand wet as long as the band-aid sides were sealed to protect the stitched up area.  I could wrap it back up with an ace bandage if I wanted to.

Later that day, I wanted to.  My entire wrist was very sore and the little wrist bones felt loose and when I flexed my wrist it felt like I had a bag of rocks in there banging around.  My whole hand was stiff, and I tried gently touching my thumb to my fingertips and all of them made it but the pinkie was very reluctant.  I stopped after one try.  I don't want to rush things.  I want this to work.  

I found an ace bandage and wrapped my hand back up, but I wiggled and curled my fingers now and then, just to remind them that they won't be allowed to slack off forever.

At this very moment my ace bandage is off and I am actually doing a little typing right now.  

I was given a prescription for Tylenol 3, but I only used it the first day and a half.  It didn't do much for the pain - just made me sleepy.  I've just been using OTC meds as needed.  

And rest.  Difficult, necessary rest.

Speaking of which, that's it for now.  

 

Enforced Rest

An hour ago I had carpal tunnel surgery on my left hand.  When this heals, I'll have it done on my left hand.

Right now I'm typing with my left hand, hunt and peck style, with my tingly fingers and my thumb. who is not used to operating a space bar, is going half numb from the CTS and boredom.

My right hand is swathed in a festive white and gold bandage. My fingers are still numb from the surgery, and I know that when the numbness wears off there will probably be pain, but I'd rather have the pain.  I've had enough numbness, thank you.

I'd put off doing anything about my hands. I adapted. I worked through it. I sucked it up. I stopped doing the things that aggravated it. Like decorating cakes. And cookies. And that worked. Until a couple of months ago when suddenly it just got worse. Worse to the point where I just wanted to cry from frustration and sucking it up.  

I work as a cook.  Its a good fit. I like what I do, but more than that, I love the people I work with. They have been there for me through the deaths of both my parents and the smaller things in between. They are family. They are always there for me. And my boss is the one who pushed me hardest to have this surgery. I will be out of work during our busy Christmas season, but that is okay.  My job right now is to "relax and heal."

It's an incredible feeling, to be ordered to take care of myself.

~~~

My sister and my niece brought me to and from surgery, which made it fun, and we drove to Dunkin Donuts immediately after so I could finally have a cup of coffee, which has made the numb fingers bearable.

Anyway, I will be out of work for a while, so I figured this was a good time to get back in the habit of posting on a regular basis, even if its just to give you updates about my hands.

Plus, I can't crochet one-handed.

Yet....

Temperature Afghan 1917 Jan Feb March April

When I first started this blanket I was young and foolish and imagined that 730 rows of crochet would fit perfectly on a bed.  Actually I didn't imagine any of that - I didn't really think about how big the finished project would be until I'd finished the first month and measured the length and multiplied by 12 and realized that 2017 was going to be a big year of yarn.  At first I thought I could just do two blankets of 6 months each, but even that would be a bit big for a normal-sized bed, so I divided the year into three sections, and here is the first one.  As of this post, I'm in the end of July in the next portion, so almost 3/4 finished.  Hopefully I'll finish the whole thing before my kids graduate high school.

Some of the temperature blankets (or scarves) I've seen on places like Pinterest have brighter colors, but I prefer blues, greens - the cooler tones.  The colors are soothing, like a walk along one of our Rhode Island beaches after the tourists have gone home.  

April brought us a few stripes of warmth, as you can see above.  The darker greens, those couple rows of yellow, those show first hints of Spring.

My colors:

I used a different color for every 5 degrees Fahrenheit, and this scrap of paper was my guide throughout the first four month segment.  And hey - if you scroll back a few posts you can see my initial post about this project.  Yay!

Here are my tools for the next four month afghan, beginning with the color range and samples of all the yarns wrapped around some clothespins.  A couple of shades of green are pretty close and I still have to double check which is which if the lighting is bad.

Below, my progress so far, sitting in a rumpled heap on top of my box of in-use yarns.  In the top left of the picture is another project, a sampler afghan done in bright, warmer colors.  I started working on it during Julia's softball games this past season.  I'd do a square in one stitch...then one in a different stitch.  I'll pick it up again as her off-season indoor games begin next month.

These are my backup yarns for the current temperature project, so I don't run out mid-row. 

And this is my temperature calendar.  Each date has two temperatures, and above each number is a letter that stands for the corresponding yarn.  As I finish each row I put a check mark above the letter.  I filled in all those temperatures with help from the Weather Underground app.  You can do a weather history search based on your zip code and look up all sorts of things.  

And here is Otis, looking deceptively quiet and peaceful.  

He's been sleeping on this blanket (which is on top of yet another project so that the cats don't get cat hairs all over it or poke themselves with pins) for the past several hours, but after I was done taking these pictures, he wandered over to where I was typing (and watching the Red Sox parade through Boston on tv) to try to distract me from my task.  He likes to walk on the keyboard, and when I don't let him do that he heads for my uncovered water glass in order to make me lunge across the couch.  

He has the loudest purr.  :)

Gotta go now.  Happy Halloween!

One Year and Eight Months Later

I have a corned beef in the oven, rubbed mostly all over with black pepper, coriander, and paprika.  It's perched on a rack over a 13 x 9 inch pan of water and will, in around 3-4 hours, be magically transformed into pastrami.  

I wasn't planning on giving it a smoky flavor, but the drippings from a whole roasted squash recently have had other ideas.  I've got windows open despite the wintery temperatures in an effort to get MOST of the smoke out of the house.  My eyes are stinging slightly.

We have a new member of the family.  But before he joined us, we lost my Dad's cat, Audrey, to breast cancer.  I'd never thought of cats having breast cancer, but what do you know.  It's very aggressive in cats - apparently dogs respond better to treatment - and so with a lot of second guessing and guilt and sadness, I had Audrey euthanized earlier this month.  She had two good years with us, almost a full year with my Dad before that, so I should feel good about that, but still, it's never an easy decision.  

A week or so after that horrible evening Julia told me that Bill had been looking at Scratchy and said to her (Julia) that he thought Scratchy looked bored.  Now, Audrey and Scratchy weren't off on daily adventures, and Scratchy has always been a pretty sedentary cat even before Audrey came along to boss him around, but they did have moments of play - or battle - that must have kept things interesting for him.  Without Audrey there was no one to argue over whose turn it is to hang out in that empty box in the living room.  Or...well, that's pretty much where their play time and battles happened.

A day or so later Bill said the same "Scratchy looks bored" thing to me, and Julia and I decided that Bill thought Scratchy needed a companion but was too...something...to come right out and say it, so "bored" was a hint.  I spent a morning looking at pet adoption sites.  And I decided (because I am the authority on cats in this house) that Scratchy would do better with a kitten than with another adult cat.  When I brought Audrey home, Scratchy fled to the basement for three months until he got brave enough to venture back into the rest of the house WHERE THAT SCARY NEW CAT was living.  The scary new cat who was less than half his size physically, but triple his size in self confidence.  I didn't want Scratchy to feel displaced again.  So - a kitten.  I checked in with a lot of animal shelters in our area, and showed Julia pictures of adorable little kitten faces, and saw, sometimes, that there were SIBLING kittens that would, ideally, be adopted TOGETHER, and I was extremely tempted by the thought of two little kittens chasing each other around the house.

But.

Again, I didn't want Scratchy to feel overwhelmed.  And it was within the realm of possibility that two kittens would be too many for him.  

We ended up adopting a little ten week old foster kitten by someone who knows someone who my therapist knows.  He is all black with just a few white hairs near his throat.  He is friendly, loving, purrs like a tiny jackhammer, and adores Scratchy.  Within three days of their first face to face meeting, Scratchy accepted the kitten as an annoying but not intimidating member of the clan.

(And because I am in a sharing mood, I ask you how is it possible to suddenly split the backside of a pair of pants that are TOO BIG? I got up from my chair to shut the windows just now because the smoke has cleared out and UPS just dropped off two boxes and as I stood up my pants split.  I don't understand that in the least.  But there you go, a little glimpse into my world today.)

Oh, and by the way, Bill said "Scratchy looks bored" meant nothing more than "Scratchy looks bored," and after several days of feeling too much peer pressure and not wanting to give in to the evils of kitten adoption, he caved.  And tells us all that the kitten loves him best.  Naming the kitten - his foster human had given him a name, but we wanted to do our own naming, and really, he's a cat, he will answer if he feels like it, no matter what we call him - so anyway, after many name suggestions on which all four of us could never agree, I suggested to the kids that we let Bill name him, because we have all named one or more of all the other pets, and Bill hasn't named any.  Unless he's secretly named the assorted fish in his tank.

I was going to post a picture of him just now, but I have a new laptop and for some as yet unknown reason I can't insert photos just yet.  I'll put a couple pictures on my Facebook page later.

Anyway, at this point, a couple weeks into the adoption, Scratchy and Otis are getting along well.  As I type, they are both sleeping on the big tan chair in the living room.  Otis, when awake, can be very pesky and annoying, just like a younger sibling, and Scratchy is tolerant up to a point, and when he passes that point he'll thump Otis on the head with a soft but solid paw and hiss, and follow that up by licking Otis vigorously in the same spot.  Kind of stern discipline followed by a hug.  Mostly, there is peace. 

And I don't think anyone could say Scratchy looks bored.

That's it for my first post in a really, really long time.  

I've missed you.

 

Temperature Afghan January 2017

I finished January's rows a few weeks ago. I had thought about adding in a row of black to separate each month, but that would disrupt the color flow, and my sister said not to,  so instead I just tied in a little black fringe on each side. 

I'm happy with the look so far, and I'm very happy with the colors I'm using.

I thought it would be a good idea to measure the length, now that I've got the first month finished, so I could calculate the length of the finished afghan. So I did. January is 14" long.  Yeah. Which means that 12 months X 14 inches equals a 14 foot afghan. A nice size if you've got two big beds situated foot to foot and you want to cover both with one blanket. Unfortunately, we are unable to make this work in our puny normal-sized bedroom, so I think I will make two afghans - a January-June and a July-December. 

Of course, this bothers me because I would prefer a different dividing line. Maybe November-March and an April-October.   Cooler months and warmer months.

But maybe that wouldn't matter. I just had to add three more colors to my February line-up because I hadn't expected to get into the 60s and even into the 70s just yet.

 

Temperature Afghan

Toward the end of 2016 I was looking for a new project for 2017. I wasn't going to make any resolutions because I won't keep them. Instead I was toying with the idea of posting a photo a day, something to get me back into that part of me. But I didn't want the pressure. 

I thought my project could be to FINALLY finish all the repair projects and works-in-progress that I look at and feel guilty about and then continue to ignore. And actually I'm sort of working on those, too. I wrote each one on a piece of paper, folded them up and put them all in a mason jar. I pick one out, realize I'm not in the mood to repair an older quilt just then, so I unfold the paper until I find a project I'd rather do. Oddly enough, I'm getting things done that way. 

BUT  I wanted a NEW project, too so I scrolled through Pinterest and saw a lot of tutorials for Temperature Afghans or blankets, and scarves. The basic idea is you crochet or knit a row for each day of the year using the temperature as your color key. Some suggest the high temp for the day, others the low, and some suggested using the high and the low. You use yarn colors to correspond with temperature ranges that make sense for your  Climate. I saw a lot of ten degree temperature/color charts, but I wanted more colors, so my temperature and color chart is in five degree increments. And, I've only set it up for the colder part of the year. I'm thinking of adjusting the colors as the weather warms up, because fifty degrees in January is different from fifty degrees in June. At least it is in my mind. 

Anyway, here is my color chart for January and probably February:

And these are the yarns:

At first i was was thinking of using two strands of yarn - the high temp and the low temp together - for each row, but I wanted each color to be more visible in the end result, so I am crocheting a row of the high temp color and a row of the low temp color for each day.

I am keeping track of the temperatures for each day and the yarn color for those temperatures in this daily planner.

I work on this Afghan about twice a week. That way I get to do a bunch of rows in one sitting but I could just as easily do the rows daily. No pressure, which is nice.

Anyway, here are some progress pictures from this month.

And that's about it for today. 

The Chair

Once upon a time there was a chair.

A young married woman refinished it and took an upholstery class to learn how to reupholster it. 

The chair looked nice.

Then time and a daughter with two cats and no experience in reupholstered took ownership of the chair, and eventually the chair looked, well, horrible  

Then one year the girl and her husband decided to redo the chair as a team  he would give the wooden arms and legs new life, and then she would redo the seat and back.

He got his share of the work done with characteristic speed and efficiency.

She did not. There were always other things to do that seemed (or were) more pressing, and truth be told, she was kind of intimidated by the task. She had never done this sort of thing before, and with characteristic fear and procrastinating, she kept putting it off.

And outside things were also going on in her life, more so than in his life, and taking on this intimidating project felt like more than she could handle.

Around a year and a half went by this way, and resentment grew in him, while guilt and paralysis grew in her, until one evening there was an unplanned exchange of words, and she realized she needed to face and finish this project.

So she did.

And it really wasn't all that difficult after all.

The End

For more pictures, you can see them on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/barefootkitchenwitch/posts/1372746166101060

 

Grief and Guinea Pigs

Dad passed away in July. 

He had a pretty rough day one Saturday – was uncharacteristically difficult and hostile toward the Hospice CNA and my sister when they were trying to get him cleaned up and I called Hospice to let them know and to get advice, different meds, whatever might help.

I headed there after work and Meredith went home, and a little bit later a Hospice nurse – a different one from “our” nurse because it was the holiday weekend and schedules were different – came to check in on Dad.  He sort of resembled Sam the Snowman from “Rudolph.”  He was kind and smiling and, like all the Hospice workers we met, so supportive.  Told me, after I went through a synopsis of what was going on with Dad and what we’d been doing to care for him, that we were doing everything right.  We were good daughters. 

I can’t describe how important little comments like that were to us. 

He also said Dad was angry, and that’s why he’d been so hostile earlier.  I didn’t have time to process that but it made sense.  Angry, frustrated, at what his body wouldn’t do, at the pain he was in.

Anyway, by the time this nurse arrived, Dad was in a better mood, watching the Red Sox and resting. 

The nurse – I’ll call him Sam – introduced himself and he and Dad talked for a while.  Sam asked Dad about his life, they talked of military service and family and sports and photography and flying and birds and the cat and sometimes Dad drifted away onto other topics, but Sam went with him and kept smiling throughout.

At one point toward the end of the visit Dad told Sam “There are still so many things I want to do…but I guess I can’t do them now.”

After Sam left, Dad dozed off watching the ball game, and slept.  He wasn’t really eating much by this point, and sometimes it was difficult to get him to take his meds.  His sleep that night was sometimes loud, labored, liquidy.  I didn’t sleep well on the couch.  Sometimes it would sound like he wasn’t breathing.  But his feet would wiggle or his hand would move, and I’d start my own breathing again.

The next day he slept late and I don’t remember if we had a CNA come that morning or not.  It was Sunday, July 3rd.  I was scheduled to work the closing shift that day instead of my usual opening shift.  Dad mostly slept.  And the sleeping, again, was sometimes ragged and gurgling.  Hard to listen to, but the nurse had said he wasn’t in pain.  It was just saliva and secretions.

As the morning went on and Dad kept sleeping and his breathing kept being ragged and, yes, upsetting, I felt more and more like I should stay.  Meredith got there and I let work know – with apologies for the late notice – that I wouldn’t be in.  They understood.  My coworkers were so supportive during all of this.  So supportive. 

Meredith and I sat with Dad.  We cleaned him up as needed.  We tried to give him meds when he was awake.  We crocheted.  Watched TV.  Ate.  I don’t remember what else, really.  I stayed the night.  And I didn’t work the next night either.  I just felt like things were winding down and I didn’t want to leave.

I stayed during the day on Tuesday.  It was my birthday.  Meredith came over after work and I went home.  Bill and the kids made me a great dinner of steamers and lobster and I’m sure there was dessert but I remember very little, to be honest.  I checked in with Mere periodically and nothing had really changed. 

The next morning I drove down.  I lingered so I could have a long cup of coffee at home, with Bill.  And I got stuck in some beach traffic on my way to Dad’s, even though I took the back route.

And when I pulled into the driveway Meredith came and opened the porch door and by the look on her face I knew, before she even shook her head.  He was gone.  Ten minutes ago.

We did all the things you do next.  We notified Hospice and they sent a nurse over who “pronounced” him dead.  Meredith had written down his actual time of death, but apparently time of death is determined by the official nurse, not by the actual time on the clock.  It bothered me.  I am a little obsessive about accuracy at times.

Anyway, we notified our families, and the nurse contacted the funeral home.  The men came to take Dad away, and we set up a time to meet up the following day to plan the wake and the burial. 

The house was so empty and quiet after that.  There was nothing to do.  No one to take care of, except the cat.

I took the rest of the week off.  We found clothes for Dad to be buried in, and we held a wake and saw lots of familiar faces as they came through the line and paid their respects.  There were hugs and tears and laughter and what has stayed with me was how many people said what a kind man Dad had been.  “Never had a bad word to say about anyone.”  Not a bad legacy at all.

Meredith and I went back to work and found ourselves at loose ends at first. We weren’t used to not going to Dad’s all the time.  Free time was strange and it took time for us to relax into it.

At some point I remembered what Dad had said on that Saturday.  That there were still things he wanted to do, but he guessed he couldn’t do them now.  And I realized that was when everything shifted and Dad let go.

~~~

Cookie died on September 11th.  We’d been feeding him by syringe because his molars weren’t growing back any better and he wasn’t able to chew properly.  The vet had told me this could happen, and euthanasia might end up being the kindest option.  I’d been thinking about that conversation in the days leading up to Cookie’s passing.  He just still seemed so full of life….  September 11th was a Sunday.  I got a text from Alex while I was at work that just said “You might want to answer this phone call. “ So I immediately called him and he told me and at the same time Julia was calling me so I called her back from a storage room and felt my heart break for her as she sobbed over the phone. 

She’d gone to give them hay and water, and Cookie was just lying there.

Cloudy was sitting right beside him.

~~~

Alex pointed out to me that Julia cried more when Cookie died than when my Dad did.  And I told him that was okay.  Small furry creatures can have a big grip on our hearts.

I felt pretty horrible when Cookie died, too. I felt guilty for not knowing enough about Guinea pig health issues, and it hurt to see Julia cry.

Bill was mostly worried about Cloudy, who was now living alone in his cage.  We tried many times to see if he and Oliver and Marshmallow could live together, but Oliver wanted to be the alpha male – despite his being about half the size of Cloudy – and after one bad altercation where Cloudy bit Oliver and drew blood in two places, I decided that was the end of THAT wish.

And I started looking online for rescue Guinea pigs.  I didn’t want to go the pet store route any more.  I wanted to do better.

I don’t know why I became so obsessed.  I never had any particular desire to own a guinea pig or hamster or gerbil or rabbit or any of those things.  Didn’t hate them, it just never occurred to me to want one. Might be because my mother was TER-RI-FIED of mice and so the notion of pet rodents was NEVER entertained in our home when I was growing up. 

I wonder what she’d think of these guys.

Anyway, I was obsessed.  I found websites that would locate the desired species of rescue pet within any mile radius I could request.  There weren’t a lot of Guinea pigs in Rhode Island, but I admit I felt the Boston area wasn’t too great a distance if there was a lonely cavy in need of a home.

The thing was, I needed to find the right one.  I’d read that when trying to pair boars, sometimes it works better if you’ve got an older male and a much younger male.  They are less likely to fight for alpha status. 

I found one young male listed at a shelter in Providence.  I emailed and called to inquire about him, and I visited him when I dropped off my application.  I learned his owners had to give him up when they discovered someone in the family was allergic.  He was 8 months old.  Black and white.  Smooth fur.  I was told the woman who handles small animal adoptions would be in touch if I was chosen.

I marveled at my nervousness.  Would they like me?  Would they think I was an acceptable adoptive Guinea Pig parent??

The next day I was doing another Guinea pig search online – because clearly I had lost my mind – and !  A new posting!  This one was at a shelter in Middletown, which was across two bridges and next to Newport from here.  This one was a baby!  A male baby!  I called. I’d have to fill out an application and then I could visit him, if I wanted to.  I filled out their online application that night and the next morning (!!!) they called me to let me know they’d received the application and was I planning to visit?  I was out of breath from moving stuff out of the house and into the back of the truck (long story) so I think I sounded a little nuts, but I told them I would be there in the afternoon.

Julia came along.

The shelter had named him Mason, and they figured he was about 7 weeks old.  He’d been in foster care with his mother and sister and was now ready for adoption.  One of the volunteers went to get him and brought Julia and me into a little room, like an examining room in a doctor’s office, and left us all to get acquainted.

Julia took this picture while I was holding him.

And yes, we brought him home.

He is so small and sweet and we changed his name.  First, Julia suggested Pepper.  It seemed perfect – the gray fur looked like the ground pepper in a dish by our stove.  But then she thought is was too girly a name.  I didn’t agree, but she was adamant, so I told her to come up with other names. The ride home went something like this:

“Um…Schnitzel?”

“No”

“…Squeakers?”

“No”

“…Bread?”

“Julia, we’re NOT naming an animal ‘bread’!”

“Pretzel?”

“No”

“Tree?”

“NO”

and you get the idea.  Weird suggestions from Julia, with lots of crazy laughing.

She got tired of all my rejections and asked me to suggest something.  I thought a minute and came up with something as silly as I could for a tiny little sweet fluffy creature.

“Thor?”

“Yes!”

And we laughed, but we also kept coming back to it, and by the end of the drive, Mason had become Thor. Our tiny God of Thunder.

~~~

We introduced him to Cloudy far sooner than recommended by all the websites I’ve read, but I just really really wanted to find out if they would get along.

And – miracle of miracles – and after back and forth attempts at domination (which consists mainly of the would-be alpha guinea pig mounting the other one – nothing reproductive about it, it’s all about who’s going to be in charge – and let me tell you it was pretty funny to watch when it was tiny Thor trying to dominate fully grown Cloudy…kind of looked like a bizarre Circus act), they pretty much settled things and Thor decided it would be perfectly fine to just be the annoying youngster rather than continue his fruitless attempts at alpha-hood.

So here they are:

Thor watches Cloudy and copies what he does sometimes – most noticeably with new and different vegetables. Thor will watch Cloudy eat something, and then he’ll bravely decide to have a try.

It’s unspeakably cute, at least to us.

And also cute – the two living areas (Cloudy/Thor and Oliver/Marshmallow) of the cage are separated at the feeding area, and all four of the boys hang out near that panel and talk to each other and sniff and chomp on hay. We have put them all together in the “corral” a couple of times, but peace is fleeting and usually we have to remove Oliver within a few minutes. They can’t live together (Oliver and Cloudy just don’t get along, and I know Oliver would want to dominate Thor, too), but like Robert Frost wrote, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

~~~

Guinea pigs are funny creatures.  Ours are all sweet (to humans) and cuddly and have definite personalities. They insist they are starving when they see any of us near the cages, and they go loud with mad joy when they see us open the hay bin.  They run for their little lives when we try to pick them up, but then settle in for a little snuggle under our chins or on our chests when we have them in hand.

I don’t know why they have worked their way into my heart so quickly and insistently, but there you go.  Some things can’t be explained.  I guess the timing was right.

The New Guys

 

Not these guys – these two are now the old guys, sort of, even though they’re not even a year old. 

When Cookie was recently going to the vet for teeth and eye issues, the veterinarian let me know that if he keeps having problems, the kindest thing to do might be to euthanize him, as he wouldn’t really be able to gain weight and his quality of life would deteriorate.

:(

So we had his teeth filed down and I have become extremely controlling and bossy about his diet and meds, because I want him to have the best possible chance to have a good little life. 

But – the possibility exists that down the line he might get worse.

Julia asked me about it one day, asked if Cookie was going to die.  We were driving home from somewhere.  We stopped at a red light and I looked at her and said yes, it was possible.  But hopefully not. 

She thought about it for a moment, and then said if that were to happen she’d be worried about Cloudy.  He’d be so lonely.

Guinea pigs are herd animals; they prefer company to solitude.  And Cloudy LOVES Cookie.  Cookie is his world.  Cloudy would be lonely.

So somehow the family ended up discussing it in bits and pieces and we kind of agreed that maybe we should get another guinea pig NOW, just in case.  Then, provided Cloudy and New Guinea Pig got along, Cloudy would not be lonely.

Actually, even if they weren’t in the same cage, but had their cages side by side, they’d be happier than Cloudy would be alone.

I started looking for rescue guinea pigs.  I thought that would be a kind thing to do, you know?  And on the local SPCA website I found a pair of rescue Guinea pigs – males – that were looking for a home.  I talked about it with Bill, and emailed an inquiry about them…but when I called a few days later to check on the status of my email, I was told they’d been adopted. 

Okay.  Well, I was glad they had a home.  But there weren’t any other rescues – not online anyway – that I could find nearby. 

This past Saturday we went to the same pet store Cookie and Cloudy came from to see what they might have.  There were two – a brown and white short hair and a mostly brown crested short hair.  Julia wanted the brown and white one, but I knew it was only because – like Veruca Salt, she wanted a Guinea Pig NOW!

We told her no, lets wait and keep looking and we went to look at adoptable cats to distract Julia from her grand disappointment.

On the way out I asked when the next guinea pigs were coming in. 

The guy told me they had a new batch in right then, but they were isolated for a few more days to make sure they weren’t sick or anything before they would go out on the sales floor.

That was promising.  He told me to call back Tuesday. 

So I did.

And so yesterday – which was Tuesday – Julia and I went to “take a look” at the new Guinea Pigs.

There were only three new ones.  All were mostly white with some bits and pieces of other colors.  Two were Abyssinians, one was another short-haired crested guy. 

Julia and I sat down on the floor and watched them all in their cages.

I took pictures.

I knew, before I knew, before anything was really said, that we would bring two home. 

And we did.

Here they are – The New Guys:

THEY’RE SO SMALL AND SOFT AND CUTE!!!!!

Anyway.  We went back and forth on names, and finally, let me introduce them to you:

First up, Oliver (I named him)

 

See the little dimple in his fur on his head?  It’s like he’s wearing a little crown, or something.  He’s a crested guinea pig, not sure if he’s all-crested or a mix of that and basic short hair.  Don’t care.  He’s sweet.  I like the gray patches. End of story.

And why Oliver?  I don’t know.  He just looked like an Oliver. 

 

 

And this is Marshmallow (Julia named him)

 

Julia explained that he is called Marshmallow because he’s all soft and fluffy, plus he’s all the marshmallow colors – white, and golden brown around one eye, dark brown around the other – depending on how burnt you like your campfire fare.

So that’s the story of the new guys.  They are very small and sweet and are in “quarantine” in a different cage in a different room for a few weeks, just to make sure they are healthy and don’t have anything contagious going on.

~~~

This should do us for Guinea pigs for now.  Plus the two cats. 

But I’m still very interested in some day adopting a rescue guinea pig or two eventually. 

First, though, I need to convince Bill to let me convert the music room into a guinea pig town…..

Status Update: Guinea Pigs and Cats…and a bit more about my Dad

Here’s Cookie, slurping down every last bit of his Vitamin C supplement.

Cloudy likes his Vitamin C as well. 

They both like this stuff so much that sometimes they will play tug-of-war with Cloudy’s syringe.  He gets a larger dose than Cookie because he’s a larger guy, so it takes longer to consume.  Also, we give Cookie his dose first, and once he’s done, he wants more, so he goes for what Cloudy has.

The boys get their Vitamin C every evening. 

Cookie is also still getting the probiotic paste to help make sure his little gut is working properly.  Julia or I will put a little blob of it on our finger and Cookie licks it off and looks for more.

I wish companies made kids’ medicines (and adults’ medicines, for that matter) taste as yummy and appealing as they do for guinea pigs.

And one more picture – just a selfie – me with Cloudy.  He’s so cute.

Anyway, that’s where we are with Cookie and his issues.  His left eye still doesn’t look like the right eye yet, but he’s eating well, we are feeding him a better proportion of hay and greens, and he is perky and snuggly, so hopefully things are on the right path.

~~~

And the other night I brought Audrey home.

Audrey was my Dad’s cat.  He got her around a year ago or so, from the local Animal Rescue League.  He’d spent a lot of days hanging out with the cats, getting to know them, narrowing down his selection, until he finally settled on Audrey. 

She was probably 5-7 years old, if I remember right.  The info on her said she didn’t like other animals, so she was a perfect indoor companion for Dad, who had no other pets. 

She shared his love of watching birds at the feeders outside the living room window, but her interest seemed…different…from my Dad’s.  Her tail twitched.  She made little throaty cries as the delicate feathered creatures flitted oh-so-close to her.

She also kept an eye out for intruding neighborhood cats. 

She did not like them. They were trespassing on her property.  And they were trying to catch her birds.  She’d hiss at them and race from the living room window to the dining room window or the porch door, glaring at them and probably cursing like a sailor-cat at their gall.

There was one in particular – a gorgeous orange tabby.  I saw him most often, so he either lived very close or really liked our selection of flying prey.

Audrey wanted to GET him.

One afternoon, the Saturday before Dad passed away, I was at the house along with a visiting nurse from Hospice.  This wasn’t our regular nurse – we’d called Hospice earlier that day because Dad’s mood and behavior had become uncharacteristically hostile.  He told the CNA that morning to “get the hell out” of the house, and called the CNA and my sister “bastard.”  He didn’t want them bathing him or cleaning him up or changing him or moving him.  He slapped my sister. It was probably a combination of pain and dementia and another step closer to the end.  My sister was understandably upset – I talked to her from work and notified Hospice – they put in an order for a different medication and arranged for the on-duty nurse to come out later that afternoon. 

After work I picked up the prescription and took over for my sister.  Of course, by the time I got there Dad was in a better frame of mind and was watching a Red Sox game on tv.  A couple of hours later the nurse arrived, a tall gentleman who reminded me a little of the singing snowman – Sam – in “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”  He was very kind and patient and asked me about Dad and I told him how Meredith and I were taking turns staying at the house and taking care of him along with the Hospice and private CNAs.  He said we were wonderful daughters – or something along those lines, I don’t remember exactly – but it felt so good to hear that.  We needed that positive feedback so much – it was like not knowing how thirsty you are until someone hands you a glass of water and you actually get to drink the whole thing.  Okay, maybe that didn’t make sense, but it made sense when I was typing it, so it stays.

Anyway, he came in and met Dad and visited with him and talked to him for a while.  He asked Dad if he was a veteran, and then thanked Dad for his service. 

And Dad cried.  So did I.

More talking, more listening.  Sometimes Dad was lucid, other times his mind and words wandered.  But he was calm and amiable.

Toward the end of the visit, I can’t remember how this came up, but they were talking about things Dad loved to do – flying, photography – and Dad paused and then said “There are so many things I’d still like to do…but I guess I can’t.”

That has stayed with me.  The anger in the morning, and then what he said that afternoon.  From that day on he slept a lot more.  Didn’t really eat much except a bit of watermelon.  A sip of coffee.  Maybe a bit of ice cream.  But not much.

That Sunday, the day after his angry outbursts his breathing was different.  I sat with him as Mere came and I was supposed to go to work at noon, but first I said I’d be late and then I cancelled all together because I didn’t know if he was going to die and I didn’t want to just leave Mere there by herself, with neither of us knowing what might come next.

I didn’t work the next day, July 4th.  Or the next day, either, my birthday.  I couldn’t.  We stayed with him on the 4th, and I slept over that night and spent the day there as well.  Meredith came over at some point that afternoon and I went home to have my birthday dinner with my husband and kids.  I was glad to go, and I felt horrible leaving.  But I would be back the next morning.  It was my scheduled day off.

And then, Wednesday morning, while I was stuck in beach traffic about ten minutes from Dad’s house, he passed away.  Meredith was with him.  I pulled into the driveway and she came out of the house and she didn’t usually do that and I knew just looking at her and she shook her head and her face crumpled a bit and I’m sure mine did too and we hugged and cried. 

~~~

I just realized I’d started telling that whole story to tell you another thing about the cat. 

When the Hospice nurse was just about done with his visit, we were standing there in the living room, my Dad was in his bed watching the Sox game, and I’d opened the front door to let some air in. 

We were talking, watching the game, when all of a sudden there was a LOUD, crazy noise in the room and I looked over and Audrey had seen that orange cat in the front yard and she RAN STRAIGHT UP THE SCREEN DOOR in an attempt to get at him. 

Fortunately the latch held and she had to drop from the top of the screen to the floor.  I didn’t have to lose my mind trying to catch her or stop her from attacking the orange cat.

But really.  She ran up the screen.  Bottom to top.  I think maybe she thought she could just go straight through and when that didn’t happen she just kept going.

We three humans sort of froze, looking toward the door, not knowing, at first, what had happened.  After that, we laughed.

~~~

Audrey stayed at the house by herself for the rest of July.  Meredith and I stopped in to feed her and give her fresh water and deal with the litterbox. 

I wasn’t ready to bring her home.  I needed to make a lid for the guinea pig cage first.  And then we had a softball tournament out of state, and I didn’t want to leave her here, unsupervised.

But this past Monday night, after work, I got Audrey and some of her possessions, and drove her home.

She spent the first night in Bill’s and my room. 

 

She was very, very happy to be with people.  Julia slept in the room with me and Audrey.  Audrey couldn’t get enough of the attention and the scratches behind her ears and under her chin.  Much purring took place.

And over the next few days she relaxed and grew comfortable in her little queendom.

 

 

And then we let the Audrey and Scratchy meet.

 

That’s Scratchy on the left and Audrey on the right.  Their markings are very similar.  It just occurred to me that on Audrey, who is about a third of Scratchy’s size, the markings look like pictures of land masses before the continents started splitting apart and moving all around on Earth’s face, and on Scratchy it’s more like where all the islands and continents are today.  Of course, he’s also shaped more like the planet, too….

Anyway, mainly this new relationship has consisted of hissing and Scratchy running away.  Audrey’s territory is the second floor,

Scratchy’s is the basement,

and they share – sort of – the main floor.

Audrey has only hissed at the Guinea pigs once.

So far, so good.

Tooth Stories

I’ll start with the easier one.

Alex got braces almost exactly two years ago, and today he got them off.  Very happy day for him, though my beaming Momsmile probably got annoying.  I tried to rein it in.  But it was hard.  His teeth look great, and I think it’ll be easier now to get him to smile for pictures.  When I can get him to allow me to take pictures of him, that is.

That was the easy one.  Julia will be next.  But not today.

This morning I dropped Cookie off at the vet’s to have his teeth filed down.

I need to back up, of course. 

About two weeks ago (I’ve lost track), we noticed Cookie’s left eye looked squinty and a bit crusty.

Internet at my fingertips, I read far too much about Guinea Pig eyes and what ailments might present themselves as eye problems.  For instance, at first my thought (my hopeful, naïve thought) was that he’d gotten poked in the eye with a piece of hay. I couldn’t find any bits of hay under the lid (and I looked, of course), so for a couple of days I wiped his eye and rinsed it with saline and kept my fingers crossed.

Because sometimes an eye ailment is not an eye ailment.  Sometimes it’s a sign of a respiratory infection.  Or a dental problem.  Or an abscess.  Or I forget what else.  So many possible life-threatening issues.  Guinea pigs are apparently susceptible to all sorts of things, and because they are prey animals they have evolved to not show distress until, well, it’s just about too late.  (My eyes were aching from all the reading I’ve done about Guinea Pig health.  Crash course.)

Well, I clearly needed to bring him to the vet.

Our regular vet was on vacation, so I brought him to the emergency room at the same veterinary hospital where Scratchy stayed when he had fatty liver disease and had a tube put in so we could feed him and keep him alive.

They thought his cornea might have been scratched, but when they put dye in his eye, there was no sign of that, so they put him on some medicated eye drops and metacam orally for five days for the pain, and recommended a follow up with our regular vet or with their own exotic animal specialist the next week.

So we did all that, and sometimes his eye looked better, but sometimes it didn’t.  He still seemed interested in food, in doing all his usual guinea pig things, but the eye didn’t improve.

I wasn’t able to get an appointment with our vet (scheduling conflicts) so I brought him back to the hospital and met with their Exotics specialist.

I kind of felt like a loser during that visit, partly because I’ve never had Guinea pigs before and am doing my best to keep them healthy but it’s a lot more complicated than just giving them a dish of food twice a day.  They are kind of delicate little beings, and as I told Bill, I didn’t want Cookie to die.

My father passed away on July 6th.  I will write about that in time, but suffice to say I am still wiped out from these past months of my sister and me caring for him in his house, and now this little furry animal could die and I really wasn’t in the mood for any more death in my family for now.

So some of my loser feeling was being emotionally and mentally exhausted. 

Anyway, the vet pointed out that Cookie was pretty thin – he weighed half of what Cloudy weighs.  (I’d brought him along on the vet visits – I figured they’d prefer that to being separated.  The Dr was glad – she could see that I wasn’t actively starving Cookie – Cloudy shares his cage and he’s doing just fine, weight-wise.)

Then she checked Cookie’s teeth.

His incisors were crooked.  He wasn’t wearing them down evenly, so on one side of his face the teeth were longer.  Kind of like this –>   /   <-   only not as drastic an angle.

Next she took a look at his back teeth.  I couldn’t see very well, but the molars were apparently too big – he wasn’t wearing them down enough, and they were growing inward and the lower ones would start blocking his tongue if they got much bigger, and he wouldn’t be able to swallow. 

So there were a couple of possible scenarios.

This could be a freak thing (not her words) that, with meds and a little dental work, would be fixed and he could live a long and full little Guinea Pig life.

It could also be a genetic anomaly (a not uncommon guinea pig thing) and we might fix it for now, but not forever.  Quality of life would be lessened, and the humane thing, eventually, would be to euthanize him.

She gave me new meds for him, and an estimate for the cost of his dental work, and we scheduled him for the following Tuesday morning (today).  I went home kind of in shock and too muddy-brained to take it all in. 

I told Bill and Julia about the possible issues, but not the dental work scheduled. Only one financial wave in the face at a time.

Anyway, now he was on better eye drops – they were a bit thicker and stayed in his eye better.  And he got more of the metacam.  And liquid Vitamin C.  And a probiotic paste to help his digestive system, since he didn’t seem to be eating enough hay.

Eye three times a day.

Metacam twice a day.

C and Paste once a day.

Julia had already learned to do the eye drops and the metacam, which makes all this a lot easier.

That was last Thursday.  We gave him his meds and cut back on extras that are yummy but not as nutrient dense as greens and hay. 

I woke up at one in the morning on Saturday and spent two and a half hours actively worrying and researching guinea pig health issues on my phone.  I finally shut it off and shut my eyes but couldn’t fall back to sleep.  Eventually had to get up anyway and be at work at 6:00.

I brought Cookie in this morning and spent some of my day worrying, of course, and I was tired so I tried to take a nap, but that didn’t work out because frankly I kept expecting them to call and say he’d died on the table.  They didn’t call, so around 2:30 I did, and they said Cookie was doing well and eating, and I could come get him any time before 5.

I was out the door.

The vet showed me pictures of how his teeth looked before, during, and after the filing. She told me which meds to continue or use up or stop, and asked me to let her know how he was doing.  He is young, and hopefully he will thrive.

Cloudy was practically turning hand stands when I brought Cookie to the cage.  I kept them separated at first, thinking maybe Cookie needed some solitude, but Cloudy was frantic, wheeking (that’s the noise they make) through the cage and trying to see Cookie in the other cage.  Cookie chirped back, so I put him in with Cloudy and watched to make sure there weren’t any issues.

Cloudy did a lot of sniffing all over Cookie.  Cookie headed for the hay rack and parked himself there and ATE.

At one point Cloudy came over to Cookie, sniffed the left eye and licked it.  He’s done that before.  It makes my heart tremble a bit.

And at this moment, both are taking naps.  Cloudy is inside a paper bag with some fleece for snuggly comfort.  Cookie is in the corner by the hay rack, resting.  He’s had a busy, weird day.  He’s not himself yet – I put some cucumber in the cage and he’s not at all interested, but he’s just gorged on hay, so that’s understandable.

Now, we watch and wait and give meds and hope.

And Cloudy will bombard Cookie with love.

~~~

As soon as I hit “Publish” for this post, Cookie grabbed a slice of cucumber. 

Salad Days

It’s been a weird Spring.  Warm, then wintery cold, some sun again, a bunch of rain.  All over the meteorological map. 

The seedlings are very confused.

Some plants are behind schedule, like our peas, which are short and haven’t offered up any blossoms yet so who knows if we’ll even get any this spring.

Others seem to be thriving.  The garlic we planted last fall is huge – thick stalks that look more like leeks than garlic.  Cilantro is springing up everywhere – we can’t keep up with it. 

Fortunately, we have the Guinea Pigs.

Cookie and Cloudy LOVE cilantro.

They squeal with delight when we bring them fresh stalks of it from the garden (Bill had to pull some to make space for other plants that were going in). 

Cookie is especially fond of cilantro.  And watermelon.  And broccoli stalks.  I was roasting some broccoli florets the other night and I’d trimmed them off so there was just this central stalk left.  Bill brought it to the guinea pigs and Cookie promptly snatched it and backed away from us, huge chunk of green in his little teeth, into one of their little huts so he could feast privately.

Yesterday, just as I was about to leave Dad’s house, Julia sent me this picture:

The guinea pigs. 

In one of our raised beds.

Nibbling happily on red leaf lettuce and baby New Zealand spinach.

That’s Bill’s leg in the bottom left. 

Now, in time I realized they weren’t going to suddenly bolt for a chance at freedom and disappear into one of the neighbors’ yards where they would be snatched up by hawks or coyotes before I could drive the half hour from Dad’s to our home to save them.

But my immediate response was

WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?????

So I called Bill and tensely demanded to know if he was in his right mind.  “I think so.” he said, after some consideration – or, more likely, some eye-rolling and face-making at the phone in his hand.  He told me everything was fine, and that Cookie and Cloudy were having a great time.

We got off the phone.

Naturally, I did not believe him.

Well, I believed that Cookie and Cloudy were enjoying the all-you-can-eat buffet in our back yard, but I did not believe that everything was fine.  I did not believe that the guinea pigs were safe, or that they wouldn’t take it into their little heads to make a dash for the forest of Lily-of-the-Valley in the corner of the yard below two Lilac trees.

I did not believe they were safe, because I wasn’t there to save them.

It’s not a healthy trait, but it’s one I’ve had as long as I can remember.

I’ve felt – no, believed – that it was my job to save.  To protect.  To fix.

I remember this one time when my sister and I were little kids – elementary school age, but I can’t get any more precise than that.

We were in the kitchen – the “old” kitchen, before the north wall was knocked down to enlarge the space.  We were at the round table on the dining half of the room, and I was sitting in my chair by the window, and Mere was to my left.  Mom was standing, leaning back against the counter beneath the white metal cupboards.

We had candy.  Fancy candy.  From New York.  Bloomingdale’s.  Aunt Audrey – Mom’s best friend from childhood, our godmother – had brought it for us on her latest visit with her husband, our godfather, Uncle Bob.  They made me think of Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore, sort of.  Anyway, they’d brought fancy candy for us kids and now we were at the table, probably after dinner, staring at the the colorful packages.  I’m not sure where Dad was – maybe it was bowling night.

Anyway, one package contained colorful candy sticks – like candy canes only without the curve.  Different colors – white and green, white and yellow, white and red, white and pink, white and orange – all glowing and shiny in cellophane. 

The other package was a little plastic box with a few different compartments, each containing a different type of candy.  I don’t remember them all.  I do remember these lumpy red things that resembled raspberries.  They were kind of hard, but not too hard, on the outside, with a raspberry jelly on the inside.  I think the other candies were red, too.  Maybe all this took place in February, around Valentine’s day.  That might explain why I remember it as dark outside, even though I don’t see windows in my memory.

Now, we had rules in our house.  One of them was we cleaned our plates at meals.  And we didn’t leave the table at dinner time until we’d eaten everything.  Ev-er-y-thing.  Even salad.  Salad in these wooden bowls that seemed enormous and were filled with lettuces and tomatoes and a homemade herbed vinaigrette. My mother, as I’ve said here before, was a great cook, very much a foodie, though I don’t think the term had been coined back in the 70’s.  Now, as an adult, I admire all the effort she put into making our meals delicious and healthy, but at the time, all those chopped herbs and vinegar on top of boring lettuce was pretty gross.  I remember there were plenty of nights where my parents were finished and had moved into the living room to watch tv while my sister and I sat in our chairs and picked at leaves and made faces and came up with games and imaginary animal companions to make the time go by as we worked up the intestinal fortitude to eat our green torture food.  Because we couldn’t leave the table until we were done.  That was the rule.

I don’t remember, but I’m guessing that shiny packaged candy was an incentive to eat our salads quickly. 

And when we were given the opportunity to have a piece of the fancy candy from Bloomingdale’s in New York, things got weird. 

My mother suddenly, eerily, terrifyingly, lost her mind.

She said we could go ahead and have some candy.

“Go ahead,” she encouraged us.  “Have as much as you want!”

Immediately air raid sirens and flashing lights went off in my brain.  Something was wrong, something was very, very wrong.  I didn’t know what had happened, but this was not something our mother – our real mother – would say.  We didn’t have as much as we wanted in this house!  We had a serving.  A portion.  A slice.  We did not gorge ourselves.

My younger sister, untroubled by the sirens and lights in my head, dug in with joy.  Candy was WAY better than the salad we had suffered through!  As much candy as we wanted was EVEN BETTER!

The world had suddenly tilted off it’s axis and I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO NOTICED! 

In great panic, I knew I had to save my baby sister from this madness. 

“No!” I said urgently.  “Don’t eat it ALL!  Just have one or two pieces!” 

She looked at me like I was nuts.  What was my problem?  UNLIMITED CANDY!!!

And I remember being very adamant about showing restraint, about only having a piece or two, a portion, not the whole package. 

And my mother, as I remember, watched this little drama unfold, and she just stood there, watching, and smiling.  She appeared…entertained.

~~~

I brought this up not too long ago with Meredith, and she remembered it too, and speculated that Mom was drunk at the time.  That this was a fun little psych 101 experiment for her.

It’s certainly possible.  We were not aware of drunk vs. sober.  We had nothing to compare our family to.  This was our world.  This was our Mom.  A great mother in a lot of ways, but she was not perfect and had her own demons to face or evade, as we all do. 

So I can’t really comment on her behavior that night, other than to say that it freaked me out.  And that I had to save my sister from whatever craziness was – or might be – happening.

That’s how I roll.

~~~

Over the years this facet of my personality has manifested itself in all sorts of ways.  I spent years feeling it was my role to defend my sister from my parents – not that were abusive or anything, it was more a lawyerly kind of defense whenever she did something wrong or needed to speak up for herself and I felt she was taking too much time to state her case.  I would just jump right in and take over.  She didn’t ask me to – I just took it upon myself. 

And, even later, I thought – no, I believed – that I should and could and, if I tried hard enough – would get my mother to stop drinking.  In my inexperience, my naiveté, my ignorance, my desperate desire for things to be okay and for everyone to be safe, I thought I could fix this problem by getting my mother to open up about what was upsetting her so much.  I wanted her to know that I would understand, that I could understand, despite that she had “been around a few more years” than I had.  I wanted her to understand that I could help her, she could talk to me, she could tell me what was wrong and just the act of talking about it would surely help her get better.  Wouldn’t it?  I firmly, fervently believed it.  I spent years and years believing it, serving that belief, running in circles trying to say JUST the right thing to her that would flip a switch somewhere in her mind or heart and she would no longer be so sad, and no longer need to drink.

Turns out my sister really didn’t need me to talk for her, and I was never able to fix my mother. 

~~~

But I haven’t entirely learned my lesson, and while I might not try to fix everything and everyone all the time, I still worry.  About everyone.

And by everyone I mean the guinea pigs, too.

A month or so ago I was home, everyone else was at work/school, and I noticed that Cookie was breathing faster than normal.  I grabbed my phone and looked up “guinea pig respiratory issues” or something like that and filled my head with all the things that could be going wrong and I counted Cookie’s breaths and stared at him intensely and worried with purpose.

I CANNOT LET COOKIE DIE!

And for a moment, I saw myself.  I saw myself as a whacko, actually.  Not just content with all the legitimate things (people) I worried about regularly, I also had to grab and NEW things to worry about. 

Because, you know, if I didn’t actively worry, something bad could happen.

And that brings me back to yesterday.

When Bill and Julia took the guinea pigs outside – WITHOUT ME TO STAND GUARD – and let Cookie and Cloudy discover the joys of foraging.

They didn’t run away, in case you were wondering.

They were not eaten by hawks or coyotes.

No, they stuffed their little bellies with fresh greens and would have kept eating until they popped if Bill and Julia hadn’t brought them back into the house.

They were not interested in racing to freedom – they just wanted to eat.  And eat.

I did not need to race home to save anyone or any thing.

~~~

But, of course, if I hadn’t actively and intensely worried for that whole half hour as I drove home as fast as I dared, the hawks and coyotes would surely have appeared, and so it’s a really good thing I worry the way I do.

I kept those guinea pigs safe – with my crazy frantic save-the-day mind.

One Little Thing

At my best, I am an awesome multi-tasker. I get a jazzed feeling when I’ve got lots of things going on at once and I’m on top of all of them.  I revel in my brain’s ability to keep various dates and schedules and projects sorted out in my mind, to keep plates spinning and balls in the air.

We have a big calendar on the door to the music room in our house.  I’ve got us all color-coded with sharpies so I can tell at a glance who has something going on every day.  Baseball and softball practices and games, plus Alex’s Jr. Umpire schedule.  And the rest of us - work schedules, Bill’s students’ concert schedules, my Dad’s various appointments.  We’re all up there. 

I love calendars and sharpies.

We’ve been extra mentally and physically busy since Dad came home, my sister and I.  Our sleepover schedules at Dad’s and our normal work schedules and getting used to Hospice coming in and out and our own families’ schedules and needs and wants…it’s a lot.

In addition to all the scheduling and physical care and grocery shopping and laundry (in Dad’s house and our own homes), there are our families who have to adjust to our absences, our divided attention.  And there’s our own knowledge of and sometimes guilt for being pulled in so many directions.  And the sleep deprivation. It’s a lot.

But we are doing our best.

~~~

A week ago I got Bill and the kids out the door and then headed down to Dad’s.  I took a different route so I could stop by one of our favorite coffee places and get coffee for my Dad, my sister, and me. 

I placed my order at the drive-thru and while I waited at the window for my coffees and a bacon-egg-and-cheese-on-an-english-muffin each for my sister and me, I checked my phone and saw a text from Bill.

“Looks like Alex missed his umpiring games on Saturday.”

Oh shit.

The girl came to the window and handed me the three coffees on a tray, and as I turned to place them on the seat beside me in the truck, I spilled them.  All three.

I screwed up Alex’s schedule and now I spilled our coffees.

I tipped the coffee cups up and saved about half the contents of each. 

While I waited for the sandwiches, I checked our email and sure enough, there was a message from the umpire coordinator and the head of the league and did Alex forget, was anything wrong, did he try to get another kid to cover his games?

And all I could see was this:

YOU SCREWED EVERYTHING UP, JAYNE!!!!!!!!!

The girl handed me my bag of sandwiches and I pulled into the parking lot and typed a hysterical apologetic email to the umpire coordinator and a weepy apologetic text to Bill.

I had forgotten to write May’s umpire schedule on the calendar.

I forgot.

I failed.

I failed EVERYONE. 

I deprived two little league teams of a Junior Umpire on Saturday and left the adult umpires to handle the games on their own. 

I screwed Alex out of TWO PAID UMPIRE SHIFTS.

I let him down, the local little league organization down, all little boys and girls everywhere who play little league down, and demonstrated my supreme incompetence to all the little league powers that be.

That one text dropped all my spinning plates and airborne balls to the ground in one long, deafening crash, and I started crying angry, frustrated, I’m-a-loser tears for the rest of the drive to my Dad’s house in my coffee-scented truck.

I got to the house, parked, and called Bill.  Fortunately he was not in a class, so he could listen to my flagellating apology without having to stop me.

And he said the right things.

He said I have a lot going on.  He said Alex needs to take responsibility for his schedule.  He said he would find the schedule for May and write all the dates on the calendar. (Thank you, Bill)

I calmed down.

My sister was standing in the doorway, wondering what the delay on the coffee was.  I got out and went around to the other side of the truck and tried to lift out the tray.  The bottoms of all the cup sections were soaked and one of them disintegrated and I watched, helplessly, my hands full, as one cup dropped most of the way through.  Fortunately the wide top stopped it from going through completely.  Small miracles.

I carried all my stuff to the house and told Meredith my long tail of hysterical woe and she reminded me that the world really was not coming to an end because of me, and it will all be okay. 

Hers is the voice of reason when my thoughts spin out of control. (Thank you, Mere)

It was just one thing.  One relatively little thing to tip everything in my giant bag of stuff over and spill everything on the ground.  One relatively little thing to make me burst into tears.

I tried to explain those tears to Bill the next day.

They were not tears of helplessness.

Those tears were not of sadness or sorrow. 

They were rage and frustration, reigned in. 

They were an alternative to me shouting and swearing, or throwing things or breaking things or being violent and loud and out of control.  

They were cleansing and healing, and now I pick up my broken dishes and juggling balls and get new dishes and start them spinning, and toss the balls up into the air. 

I start again.

Almost Two Years Later…

A week or so ago…

I’m at my Dad’s house. 

My fingers make tentative taps at the keyboard but I don’t know where to begin.  Begin with the now and work backwards?  Go back to two years ago and pick up from there?

I should have kept writing back then.  It would have solved this current conundrum for me.

Anyway.

We are in the living room.

The tv is on.  “The Andy Griffith Show” is on tv.  We’d been watching “Blue Bloods,” but I switched over to this because it’s lighter.  Less violent.

Dad’s in bed. The hospital bed that was delivered on Monday.  Audrey, the cat Dad adopted from the local Animal Rescue League within the past year, is snoozing at his feet.  When he was in the hospital last month and then in a nursing home for rehab, my sister and I would stop by the house to take care of Audrey and she would complain loudly and at length about her missing human.  When he came home last Friday, she attached herself to him like a burr and refuses to be unstuck from him for very long.

My laptop is on top of a partially done puzzle – one of the Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post ones – on an old card table that sags down slightly in the middle. 

The room is crowded.  A couch along the front wall, below the windows.  The tv is in the corner.  A wingback chair on either side of the bed, this card table kind of plunked beside the couch, and the piano is behind my chair.  A bit crowded, but functional.  There are some of my grandmother’s paintings on one wall.  Lots of photos of family on the piano, near the fireplace, and on a shelf up on the wall to my left.  Lots of…stuff.  When my parents bought this house years ago, my mother didn’t want to get rid of anything, so the contents of their much larger home are crowded into this smaller one. 

Despite all the familiar things everywhere, sometimes Dad asks when he’s going home.  We explain to him that this is his home, that he and mom bought it a while ago.  Sometimes he will accept that.  Other times he looks skeptical.  Suspicious. 

Other times he will ask about Mom, or mention her as though she is still alive and out shopping or something.  We gently remind him.  Sometimes he shakes his head and grunts in annoyance at his own flawed memory.  Other times he wrinkles his forehead trying to remember. 

It’s been a gradual thing. 

~~~

That circle of life …it’s been brought home to me over the course of these last couple of years.  Not so much with Mom – hers was a different situation.  But with Dad, I can see it.  Maybe not a circle so much as an arc.  Or a mirroring, of sorts.

When my kids were babies, every new thing was remarkable and notable and deserving of a blog post or a letter or email to someone.  All those milestones as they progressed and grew and learned and went from helpless to wobbly to upright and forward-moving and determined and independent.  I look at my kids every day and (to their annoyance) just stare and marvel at how amazingly capable they are when just yesterday they weren’t even potty trained….

I remember tying little shoes. Helping small arms and legs into clothing.  Steadying little bodies as they took shaky steps.  Watching carefully, ready to help or catch or protect.  I remember amazement and pride in their little accomplishments.

With my Dad, as the months have gone by, it’s been like watching that movie in reverse, sort of.  Or, maybe, like walking up a staircase with someone, and now walking back down.

I don’t know what analogy to use.

I have felt odd deja-vu-like moments, when I have helped tie the shoe on his right food – same side as that broken leg from two years ago; it’s stiffer, harder for him to reach all the way to the shoe – and I feel like after I’ve finished the double knot I should be smiling into the face of one of my kids, not my father. 

But here we are.  Time rumbles along.

When I was still a very new driver, maybe still learning, I remember my Dad picking me up after work and letting me drive home.  The first leg of the journey was a dark two-lane road, and I remember panicking as approaching headlights blinded me and I was afraid I might suddenly drive straight into the oncoming vehicle.  In his calm, comforting voice he simply said “Just keep your eye on that white line on the right side of the road.”  My panic dissolved and I managed to get us home without a crash. 

Every time I drive down a two-lane road in the dark, and see headlights coming toward me, I hear Dad talking to me.

~~~

He has always been – as I remember my childhood – the epitome of patience.  Calm.  Unruffled. 

Sometimes it would drive me nuts.  Sometimes he took too long to respond.  Thought too long about what he was about to say.  Chose his words too carefully when I thought they should already be locked and loaded and ready to fire, like mine were.

I do not always have his patience, although I have worked hard to cultivate it in myself over the years.  But I’m still working on it.

My sister and I are here at his house a lot.  Especially now.  But even before the two surgeries last month, we were in and out of this house at least three times a day.  My sister was making him dinner pretty much every day. 

Sometimes when I’d stop here after work, I would feel impatient.  I just wanted to get home and be done.  I live about half an hour away, and at the end of the work day it seemed like such a long drive.  I was fidgety and in a hurry to get going.  I felt pulled in two directions, and I thought my family at home needed me there more than Dad needed me here.  And at the same time, I felt horrible and guilty and rotten.  The bad daughter.  Not always.  But often. 

Anyway, I have been working on patience.  He never rushed me, hurried me along, or tried to make a speedy exit.  I have been working on changing the pace in my head.  I am working on not being mildly irritated when he moves slower or when I need to help him with things that he never needed help with before.  My head is adjusting.  But it’s strange and new and unsettling at times.  He’s the father, I’m the kid.  In my mind, anyway.  Time likes to switch things up.

~~~

Like I said, Dad had two surgeries in April. The first one was planned.  Dad has bladder cancer.  The tumors have been relatively slow-growing, and when they started interfering with normal plumbing operations, Dad’s urologist would scrape as much out  of the tumors and clots as possible.  Things would go back to normal for a while, and then when blood started appearing again, we’d schedule another surgery.  This was the third or fourth scraping surgery.  The days leading up to surgery were kind of rough – in addition to the blood, there was pressure, the feeling of needing to pee but not being able to.  And the incontinence, which has been a part of his life for maybe a year now.  Or more.  I’ve lost track. The couple of nights leading up to surgery, my sister and I took turns sleeping over.  Dad was up constantly through the night, shuffling from bed to bathroom and back.  Exhausted, uncomfortable, frustrated.  When the day of surgery arrived, we were all relieved.  Well, a bit annoyed that his surgery time got pushed back to eleven o’clock when he was originally supposed to be first in line, but at least he was IN the hospital and things would start improving again.

I slept at his house the night before surgery.  My sister brought him to the hospital and I went to work five minutes away.  My sister texted me updates throughout the day, and I planned to go over after work.  I would also bring him home the next day.  We had it all planned and figured out.  Just before noon my sister texted me something about clots and kidneys and tubes.  I don’t remember it, but I could probably find it on my phone if I looked.  I called her and she filled in what she knew at that point – the tumors in the bladder had been blocking the urine coming from his kidneys, and blood and clots were backing up into the kidneys, and the doctor wanted to put tubes in so his kidneys would drain that way instead of getting slowed by the gunk in his bladder. I left work as quickly as I could and met up with my sister and the doctor, where he described the procedure and really, it was what needed to be done.  Blocked kidneys would be bad.

So we got to see Dad briefly before the second surgery.  He was sleepy on the gurney, we signed off on the paperwork, and they wheeled him away for round two.

~~~

The second surgery – the double nephrostomy – was relatively quick.  Dad spent a few days in ICU, hooked up via tubes and wires to machines and bags.  He was fidgety.  He played with them, pulled on them, set off the alarms and brought nurses in to re-attach or reset whatever he’d been plucking at. For a few nights the nurses had to put mittens on his hands and restrain his arms so he wouldn’t yank things out in his sleep. 

Despite the fidgeting, he recovered relatively quickly, at least from a machine and bag standpoint.  They wanted to move him into a regular room, but there weren’t any available, so he stayed in ICU but without the intensive care.  And then he was moved to a nursing home/rehab facility to build up the strength in his legs again so he could go home.

While we were in the hospital, we were connected with one of the local Hospice/Palliative Care representatives.  And now we have Hospice CNAs and a nurse and a volunteer and a couple of social workers on our team.  Plus the private CNA who comes three times a week for a couple of hours. 

We’re still figuring things out.  We empty his nephrostomy bags and take care of his meals and shopping and laundry and some personal care.  We can flush the nephrostomy tubes and I’ve changed the dressings see previous post), though usually the Hospice nurse does that.  We take turns sleeping over on the couch in the living room.  One or the other of us is here most of the time. 

And that’s it for now. 

Dad’s awake.  Gotta fix him some coffee.

Swedish Chef Meets Lucy Ricardo

My dad recently had nephrostomy tubes put in.  I almost said “installed.”  Anyway, they were put in a month ago, and then he stayed in the hospital for about a week, and then went to a nursing home for rehab for another couple of weeks.  He came home a week ago today, and now emptying nephrostomy bags and flushing tubes is the “new normal” around here.  We have hospice/palliative care nurses and other hospice people coming in and out daily, plus his regular 3x a week CNA.  And my sister and I have been at Dad’s house in shifts, daily and overnight. 

On Monday one of the hospice nurses was here to flush the tubes and change the dressings where the tubes come out of Dad’s back.  I watched, so I could learn what to do.  The flushing is pretty straightforward, you unscrew where the thinner tubes (the ones that come from his kidneys) connect to the wider tubes (which connect to the bags at the other end), clean the connections with alcohol swabs, and then empty a pre-loaded saline syringe into the thinner tubes. 

Changing the dressing involves removing the cotton padding and the plastic film that covers the padding and sticks to his body to hold the padding in place over the sites where the tubes come out.  The film is sticky, like a huge section of scotch tape, and it does its job, sticking to the padding, the tube, gloves, whatever.  After all that covering is peeled and snipped away, the insertion sites (if that’s the correct term – I have no idea) are swabbed with more alcohol pads and cleaned off), and then new pads and new tape are put on. 

And that’s it.  Not really difficult.

If you know what you are doing. 

So last night when I was emptying the bags for the night I got ambitious and decided to change the dressings.  One side looked like it was maybe a little damp or something, so I figured it would be good to do it then, rather than wait for the next day when a perfectly capable and trained nurse was scheduled to do it. 

I got out the bags with the syringes and alcohol swabs and pads and everything, and got to work. 

First I emptied the bags.  That part’s easy, the ends of the bags just unscrew a bit and I drain them into the toilet. 

Next, rather than flush the tubes, I figured I’d go ahead and remove the dressings, then do all the alcohol swabbing everywhere, and then flush tubes and re-dress. 

It took me a while to get the dressings off because, as I said earlier, the tape/film stuff sticks to everything.  I used scissors to snip away where it was all stuck to the tube, and I had visions of snipping the tube itself and having a geyser of urine shooting everywhere, and then I’d have to bring Dad to the ER or something to have a new tube put in.  So I was very careful with my scissors and no such disaster occurred.

Still – I am inexperienced and slow.  Dad was standing in the bathroom, holding onto the windowsill for support, and I kept asking if he was okay and apologizing for how long it was taking.  He always told me he was fine.  He is 91.  He is a WWII vet.  He can take anything.

So then I flushed the tubes.  First the left one.  I unscrewed the connection, swabbed the ends, and started plunging saline into the smaller tube.  I think I plunged too fast because I had a puddle of saline on the floor.  Not a lot, really, but of course it seemed like Lake Michigan.  I flushed the right side at a slower pace and that worked much better.

And then it was time to redress the wound sites.

Now, when I cook, I get everything ready first.  Get all my ingredients out first, then start putting everything together. 

I should have done the same thing with the dressing supplies, but of course, I didn’t.

So during the whole process I was reaching into bags and rummaging around looking for whatever I needed.  And that was fine with the flushing because there were plenty of swabs and syringes.

I fished around and found the pads that are cut down the middle half way, so you can just slide them up and around the tube and you don’t have to cut them yourself.  And then I went fishing for the plastic tape/covering things I’d seen the hospice nurse use the other day.

I found one.  One.

Oh shit.

I read labels of other mysterious packages of things and tossed them into the sink if they didn’t look like what I needed. 

I got the left one re-dressed with moderate success.

Now what to do with the right side.

I poked around in the bin where I’d put all the band aids and things when I cleaned the bathroom closet earlier in the week, but there was nothing, really, that was big enough or plastic/seep-proof to protect the site. 

What was I going to do?

Now that I’m typing this, I suppose saran wrap or something would have worked, but my brain was only working with the things available in the bathroom, and it was sort of frozen in mild panic, too, so I couldn’t think outside that little box of a room.

So I grabbed a glove and tape.  And yes, I covered the split pad with the palm part of a glove, and taped it on and used enough tape to wrap Christmas gifts for my whole family to make sure that glove stayed in place.  And I taped the fingers down too, for good measure.

I think I’d begun sweating at some point. But the wounds had clean dressings and were covered, so I chose to consider it a success.

I wrapped the bags and tubes in this stretchy thing that’s like a girdle – it holds the bags and tubes against his back so they don’t get caught on anything and so he doesn’t yank them out when he’s fidgety. 

And that was it.

A success, of sorts. 

~~~

Update – when the Hospice nurse called the next day to set up her time, I told her about my little adventure.  She rearranged her schedule and came out sooner rather than later, and told me, when she saw my handiwork, that I was very resourceful.

It’s amazing how much that little bit of feedback did for my self esteem.  What with worrying about and caring for my father, my family, and working, and all the many little things that make up each of those larger categories, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed, drowning at times, under everything that makes up my life right now.  Writing it out – and finding the humor in it – helps tremendously.  My sister and I are doing all we can do to juggle everything, and I am so grateful to have her as my teammate.  I think we mostly just try to keep each other sane. 

I’ll be sharing other bits and pieces of this “new normal” in our lives, partly because if there’s funny stuff, it should be shared, and because I know there are plenty of other people out there – I think we’re referred to as the sandwich generation, taking care of aging parents on one side and children on the other.  Plus spouses – who are going through the same or similar experiences.  Talking – or writing, in my case – keeps the tidal wave in check. 

Before My Very Eyes

“Mom, a bird just took a crap on this window.”

Alex and I are getting into the car.  I am about to drive him to the Little League field where he has played baseball since he was little. 

And shorter.

My little boy is at least two inches taller than I am now.  He wears shoes about a half a size smaller than my husband’s. 

And he doesn’t play Little League baseball any more.  I am bringing him to the field because he is a Jr. Umpire and this will be his first game.

First full game.  He umped (is that a word?  spell check isn’t disputing it, so I’ll leave it) two scrimmages at the field on opening day, this past Saturday.  I only saw part of the second game.  He was behind the plate for the first game, in the field for the second game.

Bill took a picture.  I was too cold to.

It was surreal, watching that part of that game.

Bill and I stood back a bit.  Families – parents, grandparents, siblings – of the team in the green shirts filled the bleachers nearby.  We were on the first base side.  Some parents had brought their own chairs.  Tiny little brothers and sisters screeched and chased in and around the adults.

The ballplayers were tiny, too, at least to us.  Our little boy looked…well, he looked like an adult in comparison. 

And Bill and I looked at each other with similar shell-shocked expressions on our faces.  And we said things like “Look how little they are!” and “He’s so tall next to them!” and “Once upon a time he was little like them!” We didn’t know any of the parents.  Our kids were older than theirs.  We did not overlap.

Cue “Sunrise, Sunset.”

But it’s true.  And unbelievable, a bit. 

All this time has passed, from tiny ball player in an over-sized tee shirt to tall junior umpire in his blue shirt that fits just right.

I only closed my eyes for a second, and this happened.

~~~

His voice is deeper, too.  That still startles me when I call his phone and this…this man’s voice answers.  I think, for a fragment of a fraction of a second now, who is answering Alex’s phone??  And then…good lord, it’s Alex.

He’s a teenager.  Not just a just-turned-thirteen teenager, when I could still sort of pretend to myself that he was twelve and therefore still really just a kid, but a going-on-fourteen, it’s for real, there’s no pretending otherwise, teenager.

It’s…weird.

At times I wonder where my sweet little boy went.  Because, let’s be honest, teenagers aren’t all that sweet all the time.  There’s hormones and emotions and the embarrassing fact that one has parents who are inclined to be around and sometimes even talk to you in front of your friends.  It’s not easy being thirteen going on fourteen.  Or the mother of one.

And yet, my sweet little boy is still in there.  I see him peek out.  Sometimes he even comes all the way out to hang with me and watch tv, or tell me, excitedly, about the possum he saw in our neighbor’s yard the other night, right on the other side of the driveway! 

In addition to the sweet little boy and the sometimes moody teen, I see a compassionate young man who watches and takes things in and thinks and has empathy.  The little boy had this, and as he transforms into taller and deeper-voiced versions of himself, he carries these good things with him.

~~~

My father is 91.  He has early dementia.  Sometimes it’s okay, sometimes he decides he needs to go somewhere and sets off (on foot, we don’t let him drive any more), without really remembering where he thinks he is supposed to go.  It is just another chapter in all our lives, but Alex hadn’t really experienced his grandfather’s new dimension until one morning when I brought him down to visit my father early one Saturday morning. 

Dad didn’t remember Alex’s name.

Not at first. 

Adults aren’t supposed to forget who their grandchildren are, much less their names, right?

A bit of an eye opener. 

And about a week after that, Alex asked if we could take Papa – my dad – out to breakfast, if he was still able to do that sort of thing. 

It was one of those filled-with-pride moments, you know?  It was sweet and kind and sensitive.

And we did – Alex, Julia and I took my dad out to eat at his favorite breakfast place in town, and we had fun.  Basically fun means Dad and my kids seem to conspire to drive me crazy, and then they all laugh at me.

I loved it.

~~~

On Saturday, when the scrimmage was done and Alex and the other Jr. Umpire were crossing the field, I started walking toward the gate next to the dugout.

And then I stopped.

Sometimes I remember when I was that age.  I didn’t want my parents around either.  I certainly didn’t want them smothering me in any way.  (Unless, of course, I did want them around, smothering me.  Not that I would admit it.  Much.)  So I paused, away from the gate, and waited.

Alex and the other umpire came out, walked toward me and yes, I started walking toward them and Alex kind of only made eye contact with me with about a quarter of one eyeball, the other kid walked away to wherever he needed to go, and Alex asked if I had any money because he was hungry.

Of course.

And I said something about it would have been polite to introduce me to his friend (and ohmygod I sound like someone’s annoying mother!) and he said I had this big MOM SMILE on my face like I was all proud of my little boy, and so he didn’t want to.

Oops.

I told him my face was frozen like that because it was so cold.

We got burgers from the snack bar and drove home.

~~~

Today is his first day working with a regular adult umpire.  We didn’t know the name of this person or where they were supposed to meet, but at least umpires wear umpire uniforms, so they’re kind of easy to spot.

We pulled into the parking lot and I asked Alex if he wanted me to wait a little bit.

I was completely prepared to be dismissed, but no, he said yeah, maybe a couple minutes, okay? and I said sure.

I sat and watched him jog across the grass and over to the ball field.  He introduced himself to the umpire and I saw them shake hands.

And the goofy, MOMSMILING sappy part of my brain, the one doing the cinematography, watched him jog away from the car in my mind over and over, the scene slightly fuzzy, with a swell of tear-jerking music playing in my ears, and it was like my little boy was jogging across the grass and growing up right before my sappy, annoying, MOMSMILING eyes.

~~~

So I came home and typed this.

Hi

I feel like I should launch into an explanation of why I haven’t written in months, but that would take forever and probably end up being kind of boring, so I’ll skip that and just say I’m still around, thanks for still checking in with me.

I just bought new Sharpies – fine tipped ones – so I can write in all the times and dates for everything going on in the next couple of months.  Baseball/Softball season is here, so there are practices and games galore, AND, Julia is on two teams this season, and Alex is on one team and will be Umpiring little league games as well.  I have us all color-coded on the calendar and needed new sharpies because the tips on the old ones have flattened and fattened and things written with those takes up too much space.

It’s always nice to have an excuse to buy Sharpies.

Let’s see…

Scratchy and the Guinea Pigs (sounds like the name of a band) are all doing well, the Guinea pigs have grown, although Cookie is still definitely on the smaller side.  They are very snuggly.  I think Scratchy sees them as his pets too.  He just watches them and shows absolutely no interest in interacting with them.  We still have the lizard, too, and a bunch of fish.

I never got around to posting the long, incredibly long, drawn-out, never ending saga of our re-doing all the parts of our house that were impacted by the burst pipe over a year ago.  I think I just didn’t want to relive that particular hell. 

But here’s a picture of our kitchen ceiling, which we put up ourselves (with a little help with the sheetrock because it was so heavy).  It was frustrating until we got the feel for working with interlocking pine boards, but now that it’s done (and done for many months now so the nightmares and sawdust are gone), we are both so glad we did it.

Here are some images:

 

 

I love our kitchen ceiling.  Thank you, Ruth Ann, for the suggestion!

~~~

What else…

I’m currently obsessively memorizing Hamilton, the Musical because I haven’t fallen in love with anything so much in a long time.  So I must memorize it all.  I’m still on the first disk/Act I. So much energy, excitement, and brilliant, brilliant writing.  Lin-Manuel Miranda is currently one of my favorite people on the planet. 

I also force my captive children to listen to selections in the car while I’m driving them places.  I’m especially annoying when I sing along, but that’s all part of my job as their mother, so I sing loudly. 

~~~

I’m sick of all the clutter in my house.  So one of my many projects that I’m trying to make time for is the cleaning out and tidying up of my home.  I feel all the clutter like it’s inside my head, and I have enough OTHER stuff in my head that I don’t need clutter too.  So I’m working on it. 

~~~

I find that as I try to organize myself/my family/my house/our schedules/our meals/the universe I need to make many many lists and I somehow end up buying too many daybooks and calendars and dry erase boards and – yes – Sharpies.  I operate better when I can write, rather than typing stuff into my phone with my finger.  Not that I’m any more organized by utilizing new writing utensils and writing surfaces, but it makes me feel productive, especially when I cross things off the lists.

~~~

I’ve been crocheting on and off when I can, and I made my neice-in-law a shawl for Christmas, and here it is:

 

~~~

That’s it for now.  Maybe if I leave my laptop out in the kitchen like this I’ll write again sooner this time.

How’ve you all been?

And It Has Now Come to This

First, though, a cute picture of the guinea pigs snuggling cutely together in a blanket.

But that’s not what the post title is referring to.  Not exactly.

There’s this…

What is it?  It’s a hammock.  For the guinea pigs, of course. 

Because they need one.

With a fringe.

Because guinea pigs like to hide. 

And this way they can hide under the hammock.

Which they do.  All the time.

But they didn’t have any desire to be actually ON the hammock.

Until yesterday!

It was very exciting (to me) to see them both (though you can only see Cookie in the picture) hanging out on the hammock.  And I was very happy that they’d figured it out themselves.

Smart little guys!

But wait!

What’s that wooden thing in the right of the picture?

Oh, that? 

That wooden thing with the hay and cucumbers on it?

It’s the ramp.

The ramp that Bill and I made.

It’s there so Cookie and Cloudy can climb up…

to the second floor.

Yup.  All the cool guinea pigs have a second floor.  A loft, if you will.

I didn’t want our little guys to feel left out.

They ignored it initially.  There were pellets and hay to eat, races to run, and lots of pooping to do. 

They showed no inclination to climb up the ramp.

So I tried to entice them with pieces of cucumber.

Cloudy smelled them right away.

He grabbed what he could, but he didn’t climb up.

Next, I put a sprinkling of hay and some pellets along the ramp.

Cookie loves pellets.

But he didn’t love them enough to climb up.

Eventually Julia and I put them up onto the second floor.

They seemed pleased with the renovations, and with the salad items we gave them.

But, of course, they had no idea how to get back down.

 

We ended up helping them.

Today I was home, doing laundry and watching tv and taking a nap, maybe.

Maybe not.

But probably I did.

(I’m trying to make it a point to relax a bit on my day off.  I have a list of things to try to do, but if I don’t accomplish everything, it’s OH KAY.)

Anyway, before I sat down on the couch to fold the load from the dryer, I’d tried teaching Cookie and Cloudy how the ramp works.  I put them about halfway up and urged them along, pointing out the yummy salad that awaited them at the top.

They cooperated, and were happy to hang out up top, enjoying the view. 

I figured if they wanted to go back down, they’d learn.  Plus I moved the rest of the salad down to near the bottom of the ramp as incentive.

After I folded the laundry…and possibly took a nap…I went to check on the guinea pigs. 

Cookie was lounging in the back corner of the top floor, snoozing.

And Cloudy!  Cloudy was on the first floor, under the hammock, burping up baby spinach and kale and picking a tiny cherry tomato seed from his teeth.

He did it!  He figured out how to climb down!  Yay!  What a good boy!

~~~

I know.  I sound nuts.

And that’s okay.

It’s fun.

They Make Me Think of Tribbles

 

Well, with eyes.  And, in our case, darker fur.

Maybe I should have named Cloudy “Tribble” instead.

Oh well.  Too late.  Cloudy is Cloudy.

And I am Nutty.

When we got the Guinea Pigs, or Cavies, as they are also called by people who are enamored of these little rodents, I instantly fell in love because they are cute and snuggly and interesting and new.  And, as usually happens with I fall in love with something new, I do a lot of reading.  I have been online reading all sorts of articles and lists and forums and Pinterest pins about caring for, feeding, and entertaining Guinea pigs. 

As I shared newfound tidbits of Cavy information with my family, Bill and Alex looked at me like I had undergone a personality change of some sort. An amusing, entertaining, benign personality change. I even found myself observing this new personality of mine from a safe distance, wondering whether to embrace this new side of me or to fight against it.

I have decided to embrace it. 

Old me feels silly telling you I’ve built a C & C cage for the boys.  But new me is having fun.  I like to build stuff.  And we actually had the cube things for the cage! I’d bought them for one of the kids’ rooms at some point, but took them for my fabric a bunch of years ago.  So first I made a basic cage frame, put it on one of my banquet tables (yes, I have sacrificed one of the two tables in my work/sew/crochet area for the Guinea pigs.), put some towels down and tried it out.

 

Pretty basic.  Not as pretty or elaborate as the cages you can find online.  Yet.  But the boys loved the wide open space.  They ran around and ate and popcorned.  Yes, popcorned.  It’s a thing.  Until recently, I didn’t know that.  But in recent reading I learned that when Guinea pigs are happy they jump up in the air and spin around.  It’s very cute.  Very cute. 

My next step was to buy coroplast.  It’s corrugated plastic.  Plastic is the important thing – it’s waterproof.  So, easy to clean.  Plus the boys aren’t going to chew through it.

I drove the truck to Home Depot on the way home from work one day and bought a piece of coroplast and a roll of duct tape.  Good thing I thought of the duct tape.  The only way to bring the 4’ x 8’ piece home was to form an arc of the plastic in the bed of the truck and tape the whole thing down so it wouldn’t fly away. 

I won’t name names but some people in my house who are taller than I am may have laughed or given me funny looks when I brought the coroplast into the house. 

Anyway, I measured and cut and taped.

Then I rebuilt the cage.

And I added framing for what will be a little loft area at one end.

I also learned that instead of spending gobs of money over time on bedding that just gets thrown away, I could use fleece because number one, it’s soft on delicate Guinea pig feet, and number two, it allows liquid to pass through (think urine) but doesn’t hold on to it.  Kind of like the part of a diaper that comes in contact with a baby’s skin.  Kind of.

Anyway, Alex had a fleece blanket that was too small for him now, and generously donated it to the cause after I took it. 

So this was the first version of Cookie and Cloudy’s play yard.  There’s hay, little sheltery things made of pressed paper I’d made a year or two ago, and a paper bag with hay in it.  And water in a dish.

They loved it.  They ran and popcorned and ate and hid and made their happy little Guinea pig noises and popped with abandon.  Yay!

But.

That fleece blanket (with the footballs on it) wasn’t big enough, really.

And so, another day, after work, I stopped at Joann Fabrics.  I figured they might have some pieces of fleece in their remnant section.  I was mainly there on a reconnaissance mission.

And yes, there were some pieces of fleece in the remnant.

AND THERE WERE BOLTS AND BOLTS OF FLEECE ON SALE FOR 70% OFF!!!!!!

And yes, my thoughts at the time were in all caps. 

Oh, I was joyful and frozen all at the same time.  So many colors!  Solids AND patterns!  I’ll take some of this and this and this and this….but no.  No, I couldn’t buy everything.  I couldn’t get two yards in every single color and pattern.  Not even if I wanted to a real, real lot.

So I made myself take a step back and take a deep breath and choose.  I chose two patterns and two solids.  The solids are a green and a teal.  One of the patterns is teal and white with patterns of hearts.  (Julia wants this one as a blanket for herself.  I was appalled at her selfishness but gave in because I’m obviously deranged this month and I’ll just steal one of her old fleece blankets and give it to the guinea pigs in trade.  So there.)

But the best pattern, the one that screamed JULIA at me, is this one:

I’m really surprised she didn’t want this one for herself rather than the teal and white pattern.  Go figure.

Anyway, the boys loved their new fleecy play yard.  (Yes, I know.  It’s a cage.  Not a play yard.  But I’m calling it a play yard to differentiate it from the smaller cage from the pet store.  That one, in my mind, is their bedroom.  And, since it’s completely enclosed, it keeps Scratchy out. See that orange Nike shoe box?  I’m calling that the Hay Barn because there’s a bunch of hay in it.  And I cut little doorways in the sides so they can go in – yeah, into the Hay Barn – to eat.  I always wanted to live on a farm.  Now I have a little tiny one. Deep end?  I’ve gone right off it.)

This morning I made some more changes/improvements.  I made a kitchen area.  Yes, and I bought tiny appliances and will have running water piped through within the week.

Just kidding.

The kitchen is, in the guinea pig world, a separate area where the cavies can eat and poop.  Then you can clean that area frequently and not have to the whole thing apart as often.  Guinea pigs poop a lot while they’re eating – kind of like a gumball machine, you put something in and something comes right out.  As a result they tend to do most of their pooping where they’re eating.  The rest of the time they just poop anywhere. 

Anyway, I built a little kitchen box and put that at the end of the cage – oops, play yard - where most of the pooping seems to take place.  I layered bedding and towels in the kitchen, covered it with fleece, put down towels and another section of fleece in the rest of the area, put hay in the new hay barn and in a paper bag, gave them some of their food pellets, some fresh kale, pieces of cucumber and a couple of cherry tomatoes, plus fresh water. 

Oh!  And because guinea pigs are all about hiding places, I cut a smaller piece of an old fleece baby blanket into strips and hung it from the second floor so it kind of curtains off the kitchen area.  Cavies like their privacy.  Except when they poop.  They’ll do that anywhere, any time, in front of anybody.

So here’s what it looked like before I got the boys from their bedroom cage:

They like it.

Of course.

I am the guinea pig whisperer.

Hahahahaha.

No I’m not.

There is another….

And that’s it for today.

Maybe next time I write I’ll be ready to write about something other than the guinea pigs.  Maybe.

The Scratchy View

“They’re still here?”

 

 

 

 

 

This Guy

I wanted to name this one.  I hadn’t named anything since Julia was born, I argued, so it was my turn.

Problem is, I wanted Just The Right Name.  He’s mostly black, with a white hind foot and lighter swirls in his undercoat of fur.  So I’m thinking things like black and midnight and dark.  Dusk and shadow and then all those same words, or similar ones, in various other languages. 

My daughter’s friends came up with names.  Brownie.  Bear.  Jack Black. 

And my husband called him Darth Fluffy.  We’d just seen “The Force Awakens” two days before, so we had Star Wars on the brain.

Darth Fluffy was a huge hit with Julia, and that’s what she calls him half the time.

I called him Cloudy, because of the white swirls. 

I know.  It’s kind of lame, isn’t it.  It’s like when Alex and Julia were very little and named their new kittens Softie (because she was) and Scratchy (because he was).  Only I’m a grown-up.  I’m supposed to be able to do better. 

Yesterday I thought perhaps we could name him Darth Cumulus, or Darth Cirrus – you know, keep the “Darth” and get in my cloud aspect.

But it doesn’t matter, really.  He is Darth Fluffy to Bill and Julia, and sometimes to Alex.  And I call him Cloudy because I’m stubborn.

He is actually making me think of a silverback gorilla right now.

I’m watching him and Cookie frolic around in their “playpen,” a structure that I built and it’s really a work in progress.  I have improvements to make to it.  Plans.  Big plans.

Right now it just looks like this:

The boys love it.  They race around making their little chirpy happy sounds, and they do this thing called “popcorning” which is when they sort of jump happily in the air, sort of like a popcorn kernel exploding in a hot pan.  Only I don’t think the popcorn kernel is as happy as the Guinea Pigs are. 

It’s pretty cute.  And funny.  And it makes me feel good because it means they’re happy.

But anyway, there are improvements to this playpen/cage that are in the works, and I’ll show you as I go along.

Can’t wait, can you?

When the Hermit Crab Died

 

Once upon a time there was a hermit crab.  He (or she) was the pet of a little girl.  The girl’s name was Julia, but the hermit crab didn’t know this because he (or she) probably didn’t understand human speech.  The hermit crab knew only his coconut shell hiding spots, the driftwood it climbed on, his water dish, food pellets, and pieces of fresh fruit or vegetables the little girl (or her ever vigilant parents) provided.  The hermit crab had an assortment of shells to wear, and the hermit crab had a long life, for a hermit crab.

And then one morning it was dead.

This wasn’t the first time Julia shrieked and said her hermit crab was dead.  There were a couple of times he had shed his exoskeleton to grow a new one, and she’d thought the exoskeleton was the hermit crab, his soul gone to that great hermit crab shell in the sky, but no, it was just the exoskeleton.  Tears were wiped away and a great sigh of relief whooshed through the house.

Now, there were other pets.  There had been three cats when the hermit crab first arrived.  Now there was just one.  There was a scary lizard in the tank next door, and, from time to time, unfortunate crickets crammed into a little clear box in between the two tanks.  At times one of the humans would remove some crickets and sprinkle them in with the scary lizard.  The scary lizard would lick her lips and the crickets’ chirping would grow quiet.

The hermit crab was just supposed to be a practice pet, so to speak.  A pet that a small girl could take care of and learn responsibility and so forth, but that wasn’t as expensive or in need of as much attention as, say, almost anything else.

The hermit crab lived longer than the parents had expected, until that one day – December 30th, 2015 to be precise – when the hermit crab was well and truly dead.

The little girl was sad, and she and her father buried it at the back of the yard, to the right of the asparagus patch, where most of the other very small dead pets had been interred. 

Now, the little girl was truly sad, but it was a short sadness, for, well, it was a hermit crab, and not the most affectionate nor cuddly of pets, and for a long time the little girl had been wishing for and wanting another pet some day.  A dog was at the top of her list.  Then a ferret.  Or another cat.  Or a bunny.  Or – most recently – a guinea pig.  Sometimes she’d request a parrot.  Once or twice she mentioned a snake.  Or a rat. 

The parents had said no to all of these requests, for various reasons, both personal and practical, but when the hermit crab died they looked at each other and understood that the rules had just changed.  And then, later, that very same day, the father looked at the mother and said – with quiet excitement – “I’m gonna get her a Guinea Pig!”  The mother looked at the father like he’d announced a desire to listen to Broadway show tunes for the next year.  And then she shrugged and said “Okay, if that’s what you want to do.”

The very next day, New Year’s Eve Day, the mother headed to work at about ten o’clock, and soon after, Julia went to spend the afternoon rollerskating with a friend.  After rollerskating, she would sleep over that same friend’s house.  She was very excited.

The mother texted the father, and, when he didn’t respond, she also texted the son, just to see what they were doing.  She didn’t hear back from them for a while and had a tiny suspicion as to what they might be doing, but since she was at work, she just had to wait.  And work, of course.  And wait.

And then the husband sent her this picture:

 

When she could take a break the mother called the father to get all the details.  He’d purchased a cage, food, bedding, a water bottle, and the Guinea Pig.  It was young and very cute.  Julia knew nothing.  The mother was unexpectedly delighted.  For one thing, her husband was very sweet and cute at times, and this was one of those times.  For a second thing, she could just imagine the look on Julia’s face when she found out.

That second thing was a bit of a bummer, because not only was the mother working until 7:00 that night; she was also working the opening shift the next day and would not be home when Julia returned from her sleepover.  The son promised to videotape the event, which was sweet and kind.

That evening, after work, she sat at home in the living room with the father and the Guinea Pig.  She read the pamphlets provided by the pet store, and listened as the father recounted everything that had happened at the pet store and and every word the pet store lady had said regarding the Guinea Pig.  It was a boy.  And Guinea pigs are social creatures and like company.  Hmmm.

Later that evening, after the mother had held the furry little creature and had fallen in love immediately, she received a text from Julia.  This was around ten o’clock.  Julia, in a nutshell, was homesick and kinda sorta wanted to come home.  Half an hour or so later the mother met Julia at the door (the house she’d been staying at was just up the street and her friend and friend’s mother had walked her home), wished the other mother and daughter a happy new year and thanked them twice, and herded Julia toward the living room.  “Come on inside and tell me about your day,” she said, giggling to herself. 

Julia entered the living room and stopped when she saw the cage.  She turned slowly to see her father sitting on the couch, a brown and black little furry thing held to his chest. 

Julia cried.  She was completely and utterly overwhelmed and thrilled and stunned and excited and who knows what else, all at once.  That’s a lot of feelings for a little girl.

She named her Guinea Pig “Cookie” because he looked, with the brown and black, like a chocolate chip cookie.  And she snuggled the little furry creature and talked to him and took him into her heart.

~~~

The next day, January 1, 2016, the mother was at work when her brain and will were suddenly taken over by some furry alien force.  And on her way home she stopped at the very same pet store the father and son had been at just the previous day.  And she looked at all the other young Guinea Pigs and chose one that was nearly all black with one white foot and some faint swirls of white in his undercoat.  This guy had been one of Cookie’s roommates before Cookie was adopted, and the pet store worker was pretty sure they would get along fine, since they already knew each other and had only been separated for one day.

The mother came home – she had told the father – and brought the cardboard box into the living room where her daughter was playing a board game with a friend in the living room.  There was a fire going in the fireplace, and because Guinea Pigs don’t like really warm environments, the cage had been moved to the music room.  Julia’s eyes widened and there was much exclaiming by her, her friend, and the son and his friend (who had slept over the night before) and, at the pet store worker’s suggestion they introduced the two Guinea Pigs in a safe, neutral space.  The bathtub.  The furry little boys didn’t quite know what to do in the strange white space, so the mother moved Cookie closer to the new guy, and they sniffed each other and immediately snuggled into one furry, dark-eyed ball.

And thus begins the Era of the Guinea Pigs.

And thus also ends my talking about us all in third person.

Scratchy, in case you were wondering, has not yet made up his mind about these furry little additions to the household.  Don’t worry, they will not be playing together. 

 

“But…what are those things?  And why are they here?  In my house?  Why?”

Frog Legs

Bill and the kids went camping for a couple of days right before school started back up this year. I couldn't go because of work, but Bill had promised Julia they'd go, so off they went. Not too far - about 45 minutes away.

We didn't talk or text much, partly because camping isn't about electronics, and partly because they couldn't plug the phones into a tree to recharge, so they tried not to waste the batteries.

They had a great time. And yes, I enjoyed a couple evenings of peace and quiet.

The first day, despite the self-imposed restrictions on phone usage, Bill sent a picture.

It was of Julia, and she was holding up something that looked about as big as a deck of cards and seemed to be brown.

Turns out they were - you guessed it - frog legs.

Just the legs.

Yeah.

And yes, they got cooked and eaten. Julia's idea, per Bill. Well, she's been eating fish eyes since she was two, so it's not a huge surprise. I wasn't sure how I felt about it all.

I also didn't have much of the story. Didn't get the rest until everyone was home and Bill and the kids were filling me in on their adventures.

I guess that first day they were joking around and exploring. They checked out trails and ponds, and there was this marshy area teeming with all kinds of frogs. So they tried catching them. And letting them go.

But Bill said Julia was much more determined to catch the frogs than he and Alex. She went after the big ones and was genuinely upset when they evaded her.

Eventually she got one. And she told Bill she wanted to eat it.

Now, we catch fish and crabs and dig for clams. My kids know these all start out as living things and when we catch them we kill them in order to eat them. So while it was an unexpected request, Bill reluctantly agreed. He killed the frog quickly, removed the legs, and they grilled them for part of their dinner. (They tasted like fresh water fish, only firmer, in case you wondered.)

Bill still didn't know where Julia had gotten the idea to eat frog legs, but he didn't pursue it at the time. At home Julia told us it was because of Bill. Apparently he's mentioned in some forgotten conversation that frog legs were yummy. And because we fish and all that, Julia just thought Bill (and I) had caught the frogs that we ate.

We hadn't.

But her assumption made sense.

Anyway, after that was clarified, Bill reiterated that he didn't enjoy killing that frog and wouldn't have killed any more if Julia had asked.

Julia told me after Bill killed it "it still tried to jump!" I explained that all the shaking and twitching happened because even though the frog was dead, it takes a bit of time for the nervous system and muscles to catch on, and these are involuntary twitches and spasms.

Julia looked at me and asked "Did Grammy do that?"

And while Bill jumped in to tell Julia that it was upsetting to me because it was my mother she was asking about, I laughed.

I laughed for a while. I reassured Julia that I wasn't upset. At all. And no, Grammy didn't do that because hers was a different kind of death.

And I kept laughing.

It was the timing of her question. The out-of-the-blueness of it. The innocence. And the absurdity of the image that naturally popped into my head.

And I know, I am SO positive, that Mom would have laughed too. We have that kind of sense of humor, the women of this bloodline.

Mom liked frog legs, too. With butter and garlic. I wish

Well, there's no point to finishing that sentence.

Anyway, I like to think Mom was somewhere listening to our conversation.

And laughing.

Head Above

I take medication for depression. 

Sometimes it doesn’t seem to work.  I get stuck in my head, and all the things I say to myself get louder and louder and more insistent.  It can be scary.  I go to battle in my head, against myself, the dark, assured, confident voice of my own miserable beliefs about what other people think and feel.

At times, I think – so clichéd – that “they’d all be better off without me.”  I do.  They don’t really need me.  I’ve ruined everything.  Their lives would be better and brighter and happier if I wasn’t around.

I’m pretty convincing.

But….

I’m also good at arguing.  And though I can convince myself that everyone else would do just fine if I wasn’t here, I come to a dead stop when I think of my kids.

They keep me anchored to this earth.  And, to flip that image around, they also keep my head above water when the pond weeds are pulling on my legs.

~~~~~

I almost drowned when I was 12 or 13.  I was stupid.  I wanted to be liked.  I said I could swim across this pond when my friend at the time suggested we do just that. 

I couldn’t.  I had no business even attempting it.  I was not a strong or confident swimmer.  I love the water, as long as I’m just near it and not way in it over my head. 

We struck out from one spot on the pond’s shore, and while she went straight across that section, I knew, pretty soon, that I needed to take a left turn.  My legs kept feeling those tall, seaweed-like weeds growing up from the bottom, and I felt heavier and slower and basically like I was full of lead.  I went under, turning left, and under again, and I think I yelled “help” or something when I could.  I don’t remember a lot of detail.  I just remember finally, gratefully feeling the slightly slimy bottom of the pond with my toes.  I got myself out of the water and took great big breaths, and when my friend swam over I laughed and said I got tangled in the weeds and panicked.

But I didn’t.  Not really.  No tangling.  Just panic.  Just being stupid and saying I could do something I had no business attempting. 

Stupid.

~~~~~

When I was very little my parents belonged to a “beach club” and my mom, mostly, would take my sister and me there early on summer mornings so we could play in the sand and the shallow waves.  On weekends my Dad would sometimes come, too.

One year we had these floaty raft things – promotional inflatable little boats put out by M&Ms – the logo was on both sides, and one side was brown, like the package for the original M&Ms, and the other side was yellow – peanut.

I remember sitting on my little raft – I think the brown side was up – in the water and somehow I managed to propel my little self past the gently crashing waves along the shoreline and into the deeper water.  I don’t know why I thought kicking would make me go forward.  I don’t know why, when I kept going backward – out to the deeper water, I didn’t stop and rethink my tactics.

I also don’t know why I wasn’t scared. 

Maybe because I could still see my parents and my sister clearly.  Maybe because my dad, standing in the water, waving his arm and shouting something, didn’t seem upset and I couldn’t understand what he was saying.  La la la la…kick kick kick.

And then he was there in the water, by my little kicking feet, grabbing hold of the M&M raft and bringing me back to the sand.  I don’t remember feeling relieved, or after-it’s-over sudden fright, or anything like that.

It’s just a small, silent video clip in my mind.

~~~~~

At my worst, I have no idea what the point is of me being here.

But here I am. 

So after kicking against the weeds and going under for a while, I manage, again, to feel the sand under my toes and to gulp the air.

I try to focus on doing things that make me feel like me. Creative things. Creating things. And then I try to get the other scraps of myself in order. Under control. Until the next time I let go of everything and let panic take over.

~~~~~

I’m home from work today because – rah, rah, it’s pouring rain and our roof is leaking.  Fortunately it’s not traveling through the ceilings and walls, destroying everything.  It’s currently – when the rain is heavy – dripping into a bucket in our upstairs bathroom.

~~~~~

I read somewhere that water represents emotion.

Interesting.

Little Rug in the Kitchen

I crocheted a little rug for the kitchen recently. It's at the sink, so whoever is doing the dishes can scrape and wash and rinse in comfort. I made it from two old sheets.

The main part is a light green sheet that now has flecks of white on it. And a few little brown ones. The flecks? They're paint.

But not just any paint. The flecks of white are from the crown molding we put up in the kitchen. One of the finishing touches after the burst pipe and the raining ceiling and all the demolition and reconstruction that followed. Demolition was easy. It was the putting back together that dragged on us and dragged us down at times and pretty much snapped and nipped at the legs of our marriage for a while.

The pine board ceiling we put up is beautiful. And I try to only see that, but at certain spots in the ceiling, looking at certain boards, I see whatever monster it is that lurks beyond endless frustration. I see his increasingly short temper and my anxiety attacks that feel - I mean felt - like sharp edges rocks in my chest. I see a ton of his hard work, and, after everything, I see the giant relief once we'd figured out WHY THOSE DAMN BOARDS WOULDN'T FIT TOGETHER LIKE THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO.

And we survived. Not gracefully. But we survived.

One of the last things we had to do, after putting up the ceiling and then touching up all paint we'd dinged in the process, was to tie it all together with crown molding. We found a simple, pretty design at a discount lumber place for less than a dollar a foot. It was already primed, too. We brought it home and painted it immediately, using a couple of old sheets as drop cloths. One of them was that light green sheet. And I thought it would be cool to use that sheet for a little rug in the kitchen eventually.

So I did. The rug wasn't big enough, though, so I had to add to it. I had a green and cream striped sheet that went well with our kitchen color scheme, so I finished it with that.

And that's the back story of the little rug in our kitchen.

Experimenting With This App on My Phone

I've had this app on my phone that apparently lets me write blog posts, but I haven't used it yet because I really prefer to type with ALL my fingers. It's faster.

But my ancient Laptoposaurus is installing updates, or, more accurately, having updates installed, which sounds like it might hurt a bit, and bottom line is I can't type with all my fingers til the updating is done.

So I thought I'd finally try out this app.

I need to find how the photo posting part works, so I am going to select a few photos to upload and then see where this app places them.

Ok. I picked four photos. Now I'm going to tap "next" and see if I have the option of placing the photos in between paragraphs of text.

I'll let you know what happens. I know the suspense is unbearable.

Well, it gives me the option to publish now, or save the draft either to the site or to my phone. I'll save to by phone, just for kicks.

Okay, it does not look like I can strategically place my photos anywhere other than limbo.

So I'll just explain them.

The tomato is an Indigo Rose. My sister gave us the plant as a seedling and isn't that a beautiful tomato??? There are a lot ripening. This is the first we've picked.

Next - chopped purple cabbage. I was making some stains for wood and I found a recipe for one using purple cabbage. It's supposed to dye the wood blue. Blue! So I tried it.

Those jars? Those are some of the other dyes, or stains, I'm experimenting with. I'll let you know how it goes once I've actually stained something.

And the last image? More teal than straight up blue, but I'll take it. The secret? After simmering the cascade in boiling salted water, I added in the baking soda called for in the recipe. Immediately the liquid started fizzing and the cabbage and liquid began to change color.

So. Cool.

And that's all the typing I can do for now.

I'm very excited about the dyes/stains. I'll let you know more next time.

Roast Turkey Cake for Natalie

Months ago my Awesome Niece, Natalie, asked me if I could make her a birthday cake that looked like a roasted (or roast?) turkey. 

Of course I said yes, because Awesome Nieces tend to have Awesome Aunts.

I let my brain quietly work on the cake for the first few months, when I was nowhere near her actual birthday and didn’t really have to focus on it, and then, when July rolled around, I brought the cake idea to the front room in my brain – the one with the big windows and the skylight – so I could really focus on it.  I imagined how it should look from all angles, and I deconstructed it in my head so I could figure out how to put it together in real life.

And then I did it.

I started with three boxes (yeah, boxes, I know) of Red Velvet cake mix.  I baked five 8” square cakes from all of that.  I let them cool, and then I started to build.

I layered three of the cakes on a foil edged roast-serving plate (because of course) and trimmed two of the corners so the whole thing would fit nicely into the plate.  I think I trimmed across the neck end of the body.  Then I loosely wrapped everything and that was it for one day.

The next day I took the other two square pieces and cut triangles from opposite corners.  These became the wings and legs.

I haven’t done a fun cake project like this in a while.  The burst pipe (see some previous posts) in January and all the demolition and rebuilding that has consumed us for all the months to follow kind of derailed our cooking/baking/doing anything creative in the kitchen mojo for a while.  For my kids’ birthdays I did really simple layer cakes with uneventful decorating.  As I worked on Natalie’s cake in a kitchen that finally had enough counter space for such a project, I felt twinges of guilt for not trying harder to do better cakes for Alex and Julia, eyes-rolling self-forgiveness for not doing those better cakes because at the time there was nowhere to DO cakes and no, Jayne, you’re not a bad mother, and, finally, giggly excitement because making silly cakes is FUN.

I covered the entire red velvet turkey body with cream cheese frosting (from a can) and then pulled out a package of fondant and my box of food colorings.  I got a sort of roasted-brown-skin color (brown, with some yellow added) and after looking at online pictures of roasted chickens and turkeys, I told myself that this was close enough already! 

I cut out an oval and draped it over the body, trimming extra sections of fondant.  And I cut out other pieces of the fondant and draped them over the wing and leg triangles, pressing and folding the extra fondant to cover all the cake and make the triangles kind of resemble the body parts they were meant to be.

Oh, yeah, and I made a sort of shallow cavity where the stuffing would go.  Hee hee hee.  Turkey cake!

And there it is.  The basic form of my turkey cake.  This one clearly spent much of it’s life lying on its chest, which is why it’s kind of flat like, oh, like a cake, instead of proudly arched up like your typical Thanksgiving bird. 

Now, I don’t know how you roast your turkey or chicken, but sometimes I like to scatter cut up onions, carrots, and potatoes around the bird.  They roast in the juices and brown a bit and when you remove them and the turkey from the pan, the remaining fats and flavors help make a wonderful gravy.

I didn’t make any onions, but I did make small potatoes an a chopped up carrot.

I’m particularly proud of the carrots.

And in case you were worried, I wasn’t going for perfectly real looking food here.  It’s more…representational.

I also made stuffing, but I confess the celery was too bright a green, and when I tried to tone it down with some brown (because it was cooked and so of course it would no longer be a bright color), I used too much brown and it looks like I managed to cook the turkey just fine but burn the stuffing.

I put the little white fondant-paper booties on the legs because the points of those particular triangles just didn’t want to be the bone ends of turkey legs.  They wanted to be triangles.  They also didn’t want to remain upright, so I had to prop them up with potatoes and carrots.

That’s one end, here’s the other:

Oh!  And I’m also pleased with myself about the salt and pepper on that lovely crispy skin. 

The pepper is black colored decorating sugar that I happened to have left from decorating projects for holidays past.

The salt is crushed snowflake decorations.  I didn’t have any pure white non-melting decorating sugar, and I didn’t have time to run out to the store, so I improvised.  Nice big chunks of salt!

Oh, yeah, and to get that pretty shine?  I just painted the surface of the fondant with water.  It doesn’t stay wet, but it keeps the shine.

And that was the cake.  I brought it down to Natalie, and my sister was working from home that day, so she was there as well.  Both of them liked the cake.  Yay!

Happy Turkey Day, Natalie!

January Thirtieth Two Thousand Fifteen

On January 31 of this year, I wrote this post, about the pipe that burst in a crawlspace between the kids’ bedrooms.  At the time I just wrote.  The pictures were on my phone, and I don’t write this blog from my phone (I need a real keyboard to keep my momentum going once I find it), and I didn’t have time to get things from my phone to this site because I am not a child of this age and I wasn’t born with that knowledge. 

(Interruption – I’ve just been scrolling back in time to get to the photos I took at the beginning of this almost-done-but-never-really-done home improvement/surviving the madness saga of 2015, and took a look at the pictures I took with my phone the day BEFORE everything happened.  Here’s one:

It’s a picture of some Buffalo chicken egg rolls I came up with one night for dinner.

The calm before the storm, spicy and deep fried.)

Anyway, I have a little more time, and I’ve figured out how to do a few things with pictures that are on my phone, so here is a look back in time to January 30 of this year, the Day the Water Fell…

Though the burst pipe didn’t begin here, this is where I realized there was something wrong.  I came downstairs and there was water streaming from the ceiling where that light fixture is in the picture above.  I put a trash can under it, and later, after I’d called Bill and he came home from work, and he drilled some holes in the ceiling (to see how far the water went above the ceiling), this is how things were looking.  You can see all the water (the dark brown stuff) in a bucket and a water pitcher.  I think I took this picture while Bill was in the boiler room shutting off the water to the house.  This was relatively early in the day, and we were trying to figure out exactly what sort of pipe was leaking.  It took some trial and error.  And drilling in ceilings.

Our kitchen door.  At this point Bill had pried off the top piece above the door to see where the water was coming from.  This area was my first clue that something was amiss (I saw a few drips there as Julia was leaving for school), but I didn’t think it was something going on inside the house.  I thought it had something to do with the flashing above the door on the outside.  Silly me!

That’s the ceiling in our kitchen.  The line of dripping water is just above the cupboards near our stove, and kind of above the area in the basement where the water was coming through the ceiling down there.  And kind of above this is our second floor bathroom.  At one point we were thinking (well, our nephew, Joe, suggested this as a possibility for the leaking – he was still at work at this point in the story) that it might have something to do with the shower upstairs – either the pipes bringing water to the shower, or something to do with the drain.  At his suggestion, we tried running the shower for a while to see if that affected the leaking in any way.  Somehow we determined that the leaking had nothing to do with the shower or that bathroom.

Bill drilled some holes in the ceiling where the water was leaking in order to relieve some of the pressure on the ceiling itself.

And we caught the water in Revereware pots.  Assorted sizes.  We had to rotate them a lot, emptying the full ones frequently as the water fell.

Then we switched to this under-the-bed storage container, because the pots were needed elsewhere.

Bill drilled a lot of experimental holes to follow the path of water, and, as I said before, to release the pressure on the ceiling.

Some areas only had a little bit of water…others had more.

Look!  Rain!  In our kitchen!  Our joking was stained with a lot of don’t-show-fear sarcasm.  We each, Bill and I, deal with a crisis in our own way, of course.  A lot of my method is to try to find the humor in it, to look for a bright side, or to keep my spouse from losing his mind, as mind-loss scares the children.  Not that they were home, of course.  They were still at school, blissful in their ignorance.

Speaking of looking for a bright side, here’s one, sort of – allowing the water to drain through the holes Bill drilled in the ceiling in the kitchen helped to stop the water from leaking into the basement.  The water was travelling across the ceiling in the kitchen and then somehow draining down a wall into the basement and across that ceiling.  (I wonder how many bazillions of times I will type the word “ceiling” as I chronicle this saga…)  In the picture above, the leaking into the basement had stopped, and we pulled back the carpet to see how wet the padding was.  It was pretty damn wet.  We set up fans and dehumidifiers, and Bill pulled up more of the carpeting.  We draped it over non-wood things (like a rarely used weight bench) so the carpet could dry out.  That took a while to work, as the moisture in the carpet just drained from the draped parts back down to the floor parts.

Back upstairs, Bill started sawing out sections of ceiling. 

Soaking wet sheet rock with tufts of insulation.  Pretty.

He kept cutting.

Later that evening, Joe came over and he’s the one who figured out what had happened.  A pipe in our heating system, located in the little crawlspace between Alex and Julia’s bedrooms, had burst.

Here it is:

Joe fixed it for the night, and over the next couple of days we had the pipe properly fixed.

But that was just the beginning.

To be continued….

Almost a Status Update

I was going to write a long post updating you on how our house has been coming along since my last post about that sort of thing, but it took so long for me to download all the pictures that I’m postponing it for now in favor of random bits and pieces from the past couple of months. 

I took the above picture at work one night.  I was chopping scallions and this little heart showed up.  We keep an eye out for random hearts at my job.  And we take pictures when we find them. 

I was doing a bunch of crocheting at some point – in the picture above are two blankets-in-progress (one for Alex, one for Julia) and the pink thing is just a practice piece when I was learning to do Granny Stripes.  And then it was time for lots of painting and putting down the carpeting and all sorts of other big things, so the yarn has been put away for a while.  But I’ll get back to it, along with all my other creative projects.  I miss them.

I miss cooking, too.  I mean, yeah, I cook, but our kitchen has been in a state of chaos for months, overrun with tools and the debris from whatever improvement phase we’ve been in.  Counter space is limited, and, with baseball and softball seasons in (pardon the pun) full swing, time has been limited, too. 

But – it’s strawberry season!  So things are improving.  :)

The peonies are in bloom as well:

Oh!  And I took this next one when the weather was colder, which has been a long time this spring.  Winter didn’t want to say goodbye.  Anyway, it’s the frost patterning on the car windshield one morning.

And speaking of winter, this year Bill and the kids went skiing in April.

They had a blast. 

Scratchy’s been fine, and surprisingly blasé about all the demolition and reconstruction around here. 

As long as he’s got a comfy place to curl up, he’s good.

And I’ll finish with a little event I found pretty funny.  To start it off, I was tired.  I’d had little sleep and I’d been very busy for several days in a row (plus the ever present house upheaval stress) and I was kind of like a zombie.  I’d gone to work (if I remember correctly) or maybe I’d been at one of Julia’s games.  Or two – oh, yeah, and I’d gone down to get my Dad so he could see her game or games, then drove him home – I don’t remember, but there was a lot of driving involved in all of this too.

Like I said – I was TIRED.  Needing a nap.  Anyway, I was in the basement staring at the tv and hoping to snooze.  Julia wanted to play catch, so Bill went out to play with her for a bit, and then he came in and said she really wanted to play catch with me.  So I got up and found my glove and went outside. 

We threw and caught for a while, her great big I Heart Softball smile beaming at me from across the yard.  Then Bill came outside and watched a bit and then told Julia to “show Mommy how hard you can throw!”  So she threw a little harder. “You can throw harder than that!  Show her how hard you really throw!”

Now, I am not afraid of the ball, and I am able to catch the ball when it’s thrown to me.

But like I said, I was tired.  My brain felt like mud and the rest of me felt clumsy and sluggish. 

So Julia threw the ball and my glove hand came up but not fast enough because BAM there was suddenly pain on my face.  I spun away from it and heard Bill yell “OH MY GOD, JAYNE!”

My glasses were bent.  My face hurt a bit, the left eye and my nose.  Bill was carrying on (I exaggerate but only a teeny bit there), and my main concern was letting Julia know I was OH KAY.  So I turned to her, smiling cheerfully and told her I was FINE! 

She stared at me in horror and Bill continued with the “Oh, Jayne!  Oh, that’s gotta hurt!” stuff and I shot him a look and kept telling Julia I was fine, it was okay, I just didn’t catch the ball. She was crying. 

I couldn’t see that there was blood dripping down from beside my eye, which, I’m sure, negated my whole “I’m fine!” spiel.

I finally realized I was bleeding, so I went inside to check my face out and asked Bill to make sure Julia was okay.

Well, when the ball hit me, it hit my glasses and jammed them against the bone (the occipital bone, I think) around the outer part of my left eye.  The glasses also got my nose, but not as bad.  The glasses were bent, but I got them back in working order.

The gash to the side of my eye was pretty deep, and there was some swelling.  The full color didn’t bloom until a day or two later.

It’s all healed, and I have a nice little scar.  Every time I look at it (hi) (that was Julia) I think of Julia and I am so proud of how hard she throws.  She still feels bad about it, but I’ve told her repeatedly that it was my fault, not hers.  I should have caught the ball. 

With my glove.  Like you’re supposed to.

That’s it for tonight.  I’m trying to get back to writing more often, now that the bulk of our house is put back together.  I’ll show you all that progress next time.

Take care.  And don’t play catch when you’re really really tired.

Yellow Window Light

I work mostly early morning shifts.  It’s dark when I drive in, most of the year.  The sky is black, or very very dark blue.  Sometimes there is a moon, or stars.  But mostly there is darkness.  I only have the lights on my dashboard, and the news on the radio as I travel for that half an hour from origin to destination.  And occasionally I pass a house with one yellow-lit window.  Sometimes it’s a bedroom window, probably, since it’s on the second floor.  Sometimes it’s a ground floor window, so maybe the kitchen.  I don’t know.  But I find myself fascinated by these yellow windows.  I would love to photograph them, but it would feel intrusive to me.  So I just look and wonder about the person or people in that house, and why is that light on?  Is someone getting ready for work?  For school?  Is someone just getting home?  Have they been up all night, unable to sleep?  Or did someone just leave a light on in a room and forget to turn it off?

Those are things I wonder about when I see the yellow window lights.

And there’s also a part of me that feels…a longing.  A pull.  The yellow light beckons.  It is welcoming.  I want to go there, into that house, where someone has kept a light on for me.  It’s almost the same feeling I get after my later-in-the-day shift, when I come home at night, in darkness, and I turn down my street and see a light on in one of the windows of my house.  My people are in there.  I can kick off my shoes, get in my jammies, and relax.  I am home.

~~~

My commute to and from work takes me past the nursing home where my mother spent the last month or so of her life in December 2013.  A little over a year ago.  Sometimes it seems more recent, other times it seems like a lot of time has passed.  Time is a strange and misty-formed thing.

My mother spent those last weeks in a private room at the end of a hall.  The window in her room looked out through some trees at Route 4.  The traffic light at the road to this nursing home was roughly the halfway point in my commute.  At some point I realized I could see her room, her window, as I drove to or from work.  If it was after an early shift, or before a later one, I’d stop in.  Sometimes I’d stop in for a quick goodnight after those later shifts.  In the early weeks she might still be awake, and she would smile and we would talk briefly before she sent me home, it’s late, you need to get home.  In later weeks I’d just stop in and peek at her as she slept.  I would watch closely, to make sure she was breathing.

I stopped in sometimes on my way to work my morning shift, but not as often.  It was pretty early, after all.  On the days I didn’t stop in, though, I would turn my head at just the right moment to see the yellow window of her room, and I’d think “Good Morning, Mom” or “Goodnight, Mom,” or just a simple hello.

The tv on the wall was always on.  Always.  Usually tuned to a cooking channel.  Sometimes NBC in the mornings, so she could watch the news and the Today show.  Sometimes, inexplicably, the tv would be on some strange channel that I couldn’t imagine she had chosen, so it might have been one of the nurses trying to find something different for her to listen to.

But always, there was the yellow light of her room, and, through the gauzy curtains, the rectangular, brighter light of the tv.  Always.

Until she died. 

When I got to her room that night, there was silence.  Profound silence, as they say.  No bubbly tv chef, no ragged breathing.  Just silence.  Peace, I suppose.

After that, it was, at first, painful to drive by.  For a time, the light and the tv were off, and that window was dark.  An unnecessary reminder. 

It hurt.  I tried not to look.  But I couldn’t help it.  I had to look.

Almost a month after Mom died, I wrote this in my other grief-related blog:

I drive by the nursing home and look at the window of the room where she was.  For a while it was always dark.  Empty.  Recently I have seen a light on, or the light from the tv.  The first time, there was a weird little feeling like "she's there!" only of course she isn't.

And then I was sad because she's not there...someone else is now.  Part of my mind wants to let myself pretend she's in that room, and I could wave as I drive by on the way to or from work, thinking "hi, Mom!" and wouldn't that be nice?

But it wouldn't, really.  Because I don't want us to go through losing her again.  Those last weeks, days.

So I guess this is better.

Sort of.

I still feel like that.  I still look at that window.  For the past bunch of weeks, the light and the tv were on all the time. 

And then, a few days ago, they weren’t.

I have come to think of that room as the dying room.  I don’t know if I’m correct, but I wonder if that room is for patients who maybe aren’t residents of the nursing home already, but come there toward the end of their lives.  The room is at the end of a hall, so not a lot of traffic, not a lot of strangers peering in to see what the person looks like and how bad off they are.  At the very end of the hall, next to the room, is a lounge/living room sort of area.  There’s a huge tv, some couches and chairs, a couple of tables by windows, and a computer for anyone’s use.  We would go in there to have conversations with nurses and hospice workers.  It never seemed like a busy room, it’s not like people were mobbing in there to watch their afternoon soaps.  And anyway, everyone had tvs in their rooms, so why move if you don’t have to?

Where was I?

Driving.  Driving down the road to work, and checking to see if the yellow light – and the tv – are on for someone new in the dying room.  I think hello to them, whoever they are, and drive on.

Blogs of Auld Lang Syne

When I first started blogging it was February of 2003.  My friend, Sheila, had started blogging some time before that, and I read her posts (in her blog’s original incarnation, and started to think it would be kind of fun to try that myself.  So, after much deliberation, I thought of a name for the blog and started typing. Alex was not even a year old (wow) and I look back on some of my posts I cringe a bit because I was still stumbling around finding some sort of voice for myself.  But oh well, we all sound like idiots now and then.  I stayed with that original site for part of a year, and then I switched over to a different server that seemed, at the time, to give me more options in how to set up the site. 

I was just looking back at the first posts from that old site.  I set up the blog and found out I was pregnant in the same month.  Alex was 8 months old.  I’d lost one pregnancy before Alex, and I would lose this one as well.  Both losses were pretty early on, and while both losses were heartbreaking at the time, I never felt like I’d lost babies. I don’t mourn them the way I mourn the losses of my grandparents, my mother.  I don’t think that those brief lives are hanging out in Heaven or anywhere, waiting to meet their parents and siblings one day.  I think…things just happen some time.  And I have two healthy living children, and that’s plenty to think about.

Anyway, after I found out that I was miscarrying that pregnancy after Alex, I decided to just keep my mouth shut if I ever became pregnant again.  So later, when I became pregnant with Julia, I couldn’t tell anyone, but I had to talk – or write – about it. 

So I started another blog.  It was to be temporary.  A place to talk about the pregnancy without telling anyone too soon.  And it was very temporary.  I ended up blabbing to my sister and my parents…and I don’t remember who else, but it was certainly before the relative “all clear” had sounded, trimester-wise.  So once I’d made that pregnancy general knowledge, I stopped writing there.  But I’m glad I wrote those posts, because they chronicle the beginnings of Julia.  Oh, and the title and subtitle of that blog?  Not meant to be obnoxious.  I was kind of amazed that, at my “advanced” age (for pregnancy, apparently), I could even get pregnant once, never mind a bunch of times.  And I know it’s not something to be taken for granted.  I don’t.  At a point in my life, I figured I’d just never be married, never have kids.  I made my peace with it, too, and started planning a solo life.  Then stuff happened.

I started reading some of those old posts in both blogs a couple days ago, and I’m SO glad I typed that stuff.  Things I’d forgotten – like Alex’s early words and the cute (or annoying at the time) little things he did.  I can hear his little voice.

Sometimes I miss those early years, when the kids were babies and toddlers.  All the newness, the discovery, the hilarity and insanity and sleeplessness of it all.

But then I don’t miss it, because my kids are pretty entertaining right now, too.  And they don’t need diapers.  They can do a lot of things themselves.  I don’t need to carry them, or wrestle them into car seats when they DON’T want to be here.  (I can remember more than once having my knee (gently) on a chest so I could click straps into place while the child was arching his or her back and fighting with such amazing strength for such a small person.

Time has flown. 

I’m glad I was able to capture some of it.

Projects Ongoing

Though there is still a bit more demolition to be done, rebuilding and redoing has begun, which makes things a bit more joyful around here.

Bill and Joe (nephew) put up new recessed and dimmable lights in the kitchen.  There are more lights now than we had originally, and they are better, more energy efficient as well.  The best part – for me – is that our kitchen can now be REALLY REALLY BRIGHT, which I find energizing and invigorating when I’m working in there.  The best part – for Bill – is that the lights are on a dimmer switch (most of the lights), so when I am not puttering away in there (or when I leave the room for half a second), he can lower the brightness level and gaze about in a more relaxed manner.  Then I will come back in and brighten the room up again, and the tiny battle will continue for eternity….

We liked these lights so much we decided to put them in the basement, too, along with (of course) more dimmer switches for Bill.  For me, Bill installed an additional light in my work area.  It tilts – the bulb does inside the frame – just like the one we put above the sink in the kitchen – so I can direct the light wherever I need it. 

While putting in the lights, Bill discovered yet another instance of the lazy, crappy, job the people who prettied up this house for sale did.  Exposed live wires!  Just sitting there in the basement ceiling!  So that’s all been fixed now and we can rest a bit easier now.  Of course, we rested easy before, but that was in ignorance.  Now we can rest in knowledge.  It’s more comfortable.  And there are more pillows.

Anyway, we’ve continued more with the basement at this point.  The plan is to get the basement finished first, so we can move everything back to where it belongs down there and the house will feel less upside-down.

So – painting!  The walls were all (everywhere in the house) white, or off-white.  Nice and bright at first, but we’ve gradually been adding color – bedrooms first, and then the bar area of the basement (brown…to give it that dark, pub-like feel I suppose).  Did we want to paint the remaining walls down here in color or do white again?  Bill gave me the decision, and I thought it would be cool to divide this part of the basement into two sections.  It already was, kind of, with one section being my work area and the other being the tv area.  I wanted to keep the work area white – bright and invigorating for me – but a splash of color would be nice in the other section.  I stared and thought and pored over online paint chips.  Both kids suggested blue, but…nah.  I didn’t want that.  I realized I wanted something light, warm, and neutral.  I headed to Lowe’s and looked at paint chips up close and personal, and decided on their Valspar New Peach.  You can see a bit of it in the picture above.  I was a bit…not nervous, but…well, I wondered if it might seem too girly.  I didn’t think it was girly – I thought it was, well, light, warm and neutral.  I brought home a quart and started painting. 

And I went through the quart awfully fast and realized I should have bought a gallon.  So, in order to get two walls done before anyone got home that day, I zipped back to the store and got my gallon.

It’s not easy to take a good picture of this color – depending on the light available, sometimes it comes out more orangey, other times it’s yellower.  This one was the best of them.  That little white blotch above the light switches is where Bill decided to fill in a dent in the wall.  He liked the color, by the way.  Everyone did.  Peace and Harmony prevail. 

A day or two later, Bill and Julia picked out a new switchplate:

We will find plates similar to this one for the electrical sockets as well.  But just in the New Peach area.

Here’s another look at the painting in progress:

The beam across the ceiling is the room divider.  The near side of it will be peach as well.

But we aren’t painting in the peach area at the moment.

BECAUSE…

Bill had another project he decided to tackle, since we were tearing down and putting up anyway…

The ceiling above the stairs that lead down to the basement has been ugly and annoying for a while.  When we first moved in, it was, of course, fine.  Smooth and white.  Just…there.  Over time, however, cracks have appeared.  Cracks that formed squares.  Squares the same size as the ceiling in the little closet in the basement where we store holiday decorations, extra placemats and tablecloths and stuff, and where Julia used to pretend it was her fort.  12” square acoustic tiles.  That the people prettying up the house had covered up and filled in the holes and painted over to make it look flat like sheetrock. 

So, earlier this week, Bill pulled the offensive ceiling down.

And then we put up a new one.

That’s where we are as of today.  There’s another round of sanding to be done, where the holes were filled in, and then we need to clean the dust off the walls, and then we can prime and paint again.

Progress!

Today I am home from work, hanging out with Alex, who isn’t feeling well.  I’m sitting on the couch with him, and my laptop, and some crochet projects, and hot tea, and my phone.  While I was sitting here I looked up at the window and took this picture:

The little walls around the window in the New Peach section are white.  I had painted the little walls around the window in the white section with New Peach, but Bill didn’t like it and I wasn’t in love with it once it was done, either, so that’s been painted over.  I do, however, like this window as it was this morning. 

And I mentioned “some crochet projects,” didn’t I.  I’ve got the two afghans I was working on for Alex and Julia, and just for fun I thought I’d learn to crochet Granny Stripes because I saw a really pretty Granny Stripe afghan and wanted to try it out.  I grabbed some yarn that wasn’t already in use and found a great tutorial online (not that it’s very difficult, but I am still a novice and need all the guidance I can find).  Coincidentally I picked the same color used in the tutorial. 

Anyway, here’s a little group shot of the two afghans and my little learning project from this morning.

Much as I really like that stitch, I need to put it away for now and work on one of the other afghans.  I am really trying to work on FINISHING things that I’ve started. 

It’s not always easy. 

I’m easily distracted. 

By the Granny Stripes. 

Oh, and there was this other pattern I saw as well….

Crocheting

I, like so many of us in the northeast right now, am rather over snow for the year.  We have roughly 800 feet of snow outside.  Really.  Rather than travelling above ground, we now tunnel to the grocery store, to school, to work.  It was fun at first, but now it’s getting old. 

Okay, I exaggerate, though I am shorter than the snow piled up at the foot of our driveway.

The above picture is of one of the lights outside our front door a few early mornings ago.  I had gone out to start the truck – it is old and really needs to warm up well before we back out of the driveway.  Anyway, I noticed the icicles hanging from the light and while I’ve had enough of winter and snow and cold, I still love the look of icicles…of freshly fallen snow (it’s so clean), of…of…okay I guess that’s about it at this point. 

I think I mentioned my crochet multitasking somewhere in my previous post.  I started working on an afghan several weeks ago.  The yarn is teal, and Julia claimed it.  (“Is that for me?  Can I have it?”) 

I’ve moved into the next color – a darker shade of teal – and here’s how it looks thus far:

(See the ugly tile floor behind it?  Pretty, huh?)

About a week or so later I also started a second afghan.  This one’s for Alex.  Here it is:

I’ll be switching to a mustardy yellow next, and then a cranberry.  Then the yellow, then the green again.  And so on.

Alex’s goes more quickly, with the bulky yarn and larger needle.  But I will try to keep the progress at an even pace between the two.  Last night Julia saw me working on Alex’s and shot me a glare and demanded to know when I was going to work on hers again. 

Speaking of which, I have some crocheting to do now.

What are you working on?

It’s Like Being at the Dentist’s, Only Louder

I am sitting in my living room as I type this.  I was crocheting a moment ago, and before that I was texting my sister.  There is not a whole lot else I can do, except maybe go upstairs and clean Julia’s room, but why should I get all the fun?  She should get to do some of it herself.

I digress.

While I sit here, with a sinus/stress/tension/not-enough-sleep headache pounding away in various parts of my skull, there is noise.  Lots of noise.  Big electrical cutting tool noises, and cracking and falling noises, with the occasional human voice.  The voices are from the guys in my kitchen and my basement.  They are the ones operating the big electrical cutting tools and dealing with the cracking and falling of debris – sheetrock – from the kitchen ceiling.  And the plaster of the basement ceiling.

In my last post I wrote about the pipe that burst.  Since that post, there have been a bunch of other delightful chapters related to that first story, but I don’t even feel like writing about any of it because I’m just tired of all of this.  I don’t want to relive it.  So I’ll just write about what’s happening at this moment.

The crew arrived around 8 this morning to do their demolition thing.  Bill and I had moved everything out of the kitchen except for stuff in the lower cupboards – hopefully the crew won’t need to get behind the walls there.  But I am not holding my breath.

We had also moved all the stuff out of the corner of the basement Most Likely To Have Been Affected By the Waterfall.  Of course, that happened to be primarily “my” corner of the basement – my work area, where all my fabric and yarn and all the other creative stuff is.  And you just don’t realize how much crap you have until you have to move it somewhere else. 

Anyway, those are the areas the guys are working on.  They’ve put protection down on the floors, and they’ve draped plastic over the doorways so most of the dust stays where they are and not where we are.  They are all very nice and polite guys.  It’s comforting to have a nice crew.

Alex is asleep.  Julia is at a friend’s house.  Bill is upstairs trying to take a nap because he didn’t sleep well at all last night and he has to teach later. 

I am typing, and when I finish for today I’ll go back to crocheting.

Let’s talk about that.  It’s more fun.

I’d started crocheting an afghan a couple of weeks ago, just because why not.  I didn’t have any specific person in mind, I just wanted a big, mindless project.  Something to work on while listening to reruns of NCIS and Criminal Minds.  Because crocheting and murder are such a natural pairing. 

Did I show you the other stuff I’ve been crocheting?  Oh, yeah, I did.  Well, some of them.  I also crocheted a couple other little bowl/basket things.  I’ll have to post some pictures at some point.  They’re fun to make.  Little yarn sculptures.  But I find I need to pay attention (really?) while I’m making them, otherwise they get lopsided or ruffled or just wrong looking.  I wanted a project that I could just do mindlessly when I needed mindlessness.

So I started an afghan.  I had some teal yarn, a few different shades, so I used one of those skeins to start.  I chained 201 and started single crocheting back and forth and back and forth. 

It’s meditative.  Peaceful. 

And once I got about five or six rows done, it began to look like Something.  So besides meditative and peaceful, it had become rewarding as well.

Julia saw me working on it as some point and immediately asked if it was for her.  She asks that about everything I make, just about.  I said no.  I told her I didn’t have any specific plans for it.  Yet.

She wore me down, of course.  “Can I have it?”  I finally said yes, so whenever I complete it, the afghan will be hers.  She wants to change the colors of her room to teal and white (instead of the pink and purple she’s had for a bunch of years), so it works out.

And then I started thinking I really needed to make something for Alex.  I’ve crocheted a couple of elephants, a basket, a hat and matching scarf and possibly other things for Julia since I started crocheting a year and a half ago or whenever that was.  So I asked Alex what he would like me to make for him, because you know, when you have more than one child, you need to be fair.  Not exactly the same, but fair.  He no longer wants a crocheted dinosaur or any other little animal.  He doesn’t like the look of crocheted hats, and he doesn’t wear scarves.  He doesn’t seem to mind that I haven’t crocheted him anything, but still, I don’t want to discover, years from now, that he’s been harboring a secret pain and resentment because Julia’s gotten more crocheted things from me than he has.

So I’m making him an afghan too.

I had three skeins of a bulky green yarn that I’d bought last year just because I was buying yarn because I was Learning To Crochet! and I liked it – medium-dark green with flecks of red, mustard and blue – and maybe I’d make something with it so I should buy 3 skeins! 

I still had that yarn, so I showed Alex and he nodded his approval (or apathy, sometimes it’s hard to tell) and I started with that.  It’s bulky, like I said, so it works up faster than the one I’m doing for Julia.  So I chained 176 and half double crocheted a bunch of rows and then realized the rows were getting shorter so I yanked it all apart and started again, this time Paying Attention at the turns so I wouldn’t shorten anything.

Alex’s afghan is nice to work on because the yarn is especially soft, and because as long as I don’t screw up again, it will go quicker.  Of course, three skeins of yarn isn’t enough, so I HAD to go out and get more.  I picked up more of the same yarn, plus a mustard color and red to pick up some of the flecks in the green.  I’m also crocheting into the back of the V in order to give the afghan a more pronounced stripe effect.  I’ll take pictures when there’s more of it to show you.

So today I’ll work on Alex’s afghan.  I feel like I want to finish his first, since Julia already has other stuff. 

The loud electric cutting tool noises have temporarily ceased.  I haven’t looked, but Bill said they’re pretty close to being done.  I’d imagined an entire day of noise.  But maybe they’re just clearing debris before they start hacking away again.  I don’t know.  I am in my red chair near the fireplace, typing away and hoping that by distracting myself the tension in my head will subside.  I don’t want to jinx myself, but I think it’s working.

Anyway, after all the ceiling stuff is pulled down, the guys will test for moisture in the walls, and if a wall needs to come down (oh please no), they’ll remove the cupboards and have at it.  Tomorrow the adjustor will come out to look at all the damage and destruction and evaluate it all and do her adjusting.  We will decide what we’d like to have done and what we’d prefer to do ourselves.  And we will go from there.

It’s been frustrating and miserable at times.  I don’t think all the snow – storms every week – and the cold weather are helping.  The kitchen has always been colder than other parts of the house, but since the burst pipe and we tore down a big wet section of the ceiling, it’s been even colder.  Breezy, even.  And then our second floor heat is now working properly, but it feels too hot, probably because we’re not used to being so warm up there.  It’s like we have a whole bunch of different climates throughout the house.  Maybe my headache is from jet lag.

I think they’re vacuuming up debris right now, and I think their boss is coming over to check things out, so I’ll close for now and go back to my crocheting.

Projects Planned and Unexpected, Part 2

Once upon a time two days ago I was looking forward to my two days off this week.

Once upon a time two days ago I was looking forward to tackling some big projects and some small projects, some projects around the house, and some projects just for my own personal creative satisfaction.

Once upon a time two days ago I was selfishly looking forward to some very quiet me time while Bill and the kids would be at work/school on one day and gone skiing on the next day.

Once upon a time yesterday I got everyone fed and lunches packed and out the door to work/school, and was planning to make breakfast for myself (finally) and do some laundry and the dishes and some decluttering and some crocheting or something else creative.

Once upon a time yesterday when I was booting Julia out the door kissing and hugging Julia and wishing her a good day at school, I noticed a few beads of water hanging from the frame above our kitchen door.  One dripped onto Julia’s head.  I wondered if snow had somehow leaked in and melted from the warmth in the kitchen…no…that didn’t make any sense.  Maybe…maybe I should look online and see what other people thought.  So I did.  And the main suggestion I saw had to do with old flashing outside and above the doorframe, that allowed melting snow (it was warm yesterday, mid-thirties) to drip in and bead up along the underside of the door frame and drip on the heads of school-going children. 

Okay, not a huge deal.  Just get some more flashing and replace the old stuff. 

Breakfast was still doable.

So once upon a time yesterday I thought I’d throw some laundry in first, then make some french toast for myself, and watch whatever crime drama show was on tv while I ate and then get going on a project.

Once upon a time I lived in a fairytale world.

I got downstairs and heard the waterfall and my stomach clenched into a knot as I had PTSD flashbacks to a whole bunch of years ago – Alex was a baby, Julia was a future issue – when a pipe in our main floor bathroom burst while Bill and I were at work and I just happened to come home for lunch that day and just happened to hear what sounded like Niagara Falls inside my house.  The water had poured down through the ceiling to flood the floor of our finished basement with about 4-6” of water.  After the cleanup came the fun (said with heavy sarcasm) of having to get everything fixed/replaced. 

At least the floor wasn’t flooded.  In fact, in a little unemotional corner of my mind I knew the water couldn’t have been pouring for very long.  Julia had been downstairs hunting for something to wear not too much before she left the house.  If water was pouring from the ceiling, she would have mentioned it.  Loudly.

Anyway, I rounded the corner and sure enough, water poured through the light and also through the frame around the little washer/dryer nook.  I put trash cans and buckets under the drips, shut off water, and called Bill at work.

I also pulled the frame around the light fixture out of the ceiling so the water could drain better.  And I tried figuring out where the water was coming from.  I couldn’t find any burst pipes anywhere.  Bill and I both suspected the roof.  Ugh. 

So Bill got home and helped shut the water off better than I’d been able to – the pipes and spigots are old and gunked up apparently, and hard to turn.  He used a wrench at one point.

And the water slowed noticeably once the water was off.  When Bill got home he drilled some holes in the basement ceiling to see how much water was pooled above it and to see how far the pooling extended.  I got more cans and buckets to catch the new rain. 

Finally, it stopped.

We took another look around the door frame and tried to figure out where the roof was leaking.  We both had a feeling it was somewhere along the seam where the lower roof joined the main part of the house.  Annoying, but probably fixable, at least until we can afford to redo the whole roof.

Bill called his nephew, Joe, who has a ton of practical knowledge about a all sorts of construction-related topics, and when he came back into the kitchen and was talking and I was looking up (because he’s considerably taller than I am, in case you don’t already know that), I noticed, above his head, along the ceiling, more beads of water. 

I just pointed.

Bill got his drill and made some more holes.

I got an assortment of pots out to catch the newest indoor rain.

So the newest thought was that it was something to do with the shower in the second floor bathroom.  The faucet has dripped for some time, and the pipes for it are hidden behind the wall of the little bathroom closet.

By the way, that seems to have been a favorite trick of the people who prepared this house for sale before we naively came in and bought it.  It’s a lovely house, and a great neighorhood, and we’ve got a nice back yard, and we’ve done all sorts of wonderful things here.  But back then we had never bought a house before, had never been through the joy of troubleshooting problems before, never been through the unjoy of discovering all the problem issues covered up by paint and sheetrock and pretty ceilings and less than scrupulous people.

ANYWAY.  We shut off the water (again) and watched the water slow to a trickle.  Then we turned the water back on, just to see what might happen. 

Guess what.  More water. 

Joe suggested pouring a whole bunch (ten gallons or so) of water down the shower drain, just to see if the water was a drain issue or a leaky pipe issue. 

Oh, and then water started beading up on the ceiling near the kitchen door, kind of almost above the fridge.  ACROSS THE ROOM from the other beading that had occurred above the stove.

More drilling.  Lots and lots more drilling, just because hey, why not find out how much water there is and how far it’s travelled.

When I was in the second grade, we performed a musical version of the story of Bambi.  Mainly it consisted of a bunch of songs separated by some narration and some cardboard cutouts of deer and forest creatures interacting as much as two-dimensional creatures can when toted around by shy seven-year-olds.

One of the songs was “April Shower” or something like that, and some of it went like this:

“Drip, drip, drop, little April Shower/beating a tune everywhere that you fall/

Drip, drip, drop, little April Shower/we’re getting wet and we don’t care at all….”

Those lines kept dripping through my mind as our kitchen was transformed into an ugly rainforest.

I also remembered this (my memory frightens me at times) from a record of Captain Kangaroo songs:

Though April showers
May come your way,
They bring the flowers
That bloom in May;
And if it's raining,
Have no regrets;
Because, it isn't raining rain, you know,
It's raining violets.
And when you see clouds
Upon the hill,
You soon will see crowds
Of daffodils;
So keep on looking for the bluebird,
And listening for his song,
Whenever April showers come along.

And I just discovered that that’s actually a song by Al Jolson.  Didn’t know that – I only have the voice of Bob Keeshan singing it in my head.

Anyway, all sorts of rain-themed songs drifted through my head as I determinedly remained positive about the whole soaking experience.  I can be very determined.

Besides, there were things about the kitchen we weren’t too thrilled about.  Like the stains that came through the ceiling over time – stains the Other People had simply covered up with a couple coats of paint, without doing anything to really block those stains first. 

And the basement ceiling is all pretty swirls but totally impractical, especially if you have water-pouring-through-it issues like we do.

So this was ultimately A Good Thing!  Right???

Right! 

So Bill started ripping down the kitchen ceiling.

A lot of the ceiling. 

I took pictures when I wasn’t helping clear up the soggy sheetrock and insulation.

And we eventually figured out several things:

A.  The water was not due to a shower drain issue. 

B.  The water rained more when we turned the water ON at the source.

C.  The main dripping seemed to occur at the last spot we discovered – almost above the fridge.

Joe came over after work and we shared with him all our exciting clues and showed him how we could make it rain! in the kitchen! 

And he looked at all of this and thought about our house and how the rooms are and why the heck would anything leak THERE – only Alex’s bedroom is up there and there’s no plumbing in Alex’s room and…

No, no plumbing, but there were heating pipes that ran along the sides of the house, and where Alex’s and Julia’s room joined, there was also a little crawlspace under the eaves.  Joe and Bill and I cleared a path through all of Julia’s can’t-throw-away-for-sentimental-reasons piles of…STUFF…to get to the door of that little crawlspace, and Joe took a look inside and our search was ended.

A cracked pipe from the baseboard heating element.  It wasn’t actually in a bedroom, so it wasn’t warm unless there was warm/hot water coursing through it.  AND, we’ve had some geriatric furnace issues (which Joe helped out with a couple of weeks ago) that have meant that the heat hasn’t been reaching the second floor, and so the pipe was cold and lonely and cracked under the strain. 

Well, okay, cracked from the freezing and expanding cold water stuck inside.

Anyway, it was fixable!  That night!  Just a trip to get some copper pipe, a pipe cutter, soldering stuff, other stuff…and we would be free of rain!  Yay!

Best of all, it shouldn’t take long!

And while he was at it, Joe offered to install a shutoff valve for our water so we wouldn’t have to break our hands on stubborn old spigots.  Yay!

And five hours later, ‘round midnight, it was mostly done.  The shutoff valve worked, and, second time’s the charm, the pipe in the crawlspace had been replaced with an uncracked piece of copper.

We could run the water!

We could turn the heat back on!

We could go to bed!

While Bill and Joe were working on all the pipe issues, and the heat was off, I cleaned up the mess in the kitchen.  Most of it, anyway.  That helped, psychologically, too. 

So here’s where we are as of 3 pm on Saturday. 

Saturday, my second day of peace and quiet. 

And so now we have a few new projects that were not on our lists.

Finish pulling down the kitchen ceiling. 

Replace the ceiling.

Paint the ceiling.

Maybe tile behind the stove.

New vent/fan above the stove, because it’s overdue anyway and so why not?

Probably peel off the wallpaper that was hidden UNDER the paint in the kitchen. 

Paint the walls.

Cut out a section of the basement ceiling to see how much damage there is and create a new section of ceiling that is removable so if/when we get another waterfall in the house we won’t have to DESTROY the ceiling to drain it.

And it’s not like we didn’t have any house-related projects planned…both kids are ready for new paint in their bedrooms.  When we originally created their bedrooms (Joe was instrumental in all of that, too) and painted them, the kids were little and so the décor was kid-themed.  Rainforest for Alex, stencilled butterflies for Julia).  But now that they are older, they want less cuteness.  And that’s fair. 

We also planned to paint the second floor bathroom.  The paint has peeled and Bill has sanded it down, so now it’s a kind of collage of old and newer paint.  We would like just one color now.

The walls on the main floor need a breath of fresh color, too.  And we had wanted to redo the hardwood floors….

And so that’s the update.  The unexpected plans. 

To be honest I kind of like the kitchen right now.  We moved everything that was on walls or counters or any other exposed surfaces into the dining room and the living room, so the kitchen now looks quite bright and airy and uncluttered.  And with the great big holes in the ceiling, it’s become even more spacious. 

Maybe we’ll just leave it the way it is.

For now.

Projects Planned and Unexpected, Part 1

 

That’s tee shirt yarn in the above picture.  I took tons of old tee shirts, ours and some donated by friends and family, cut them into strips, connected the strips, and rolled them into balls and balls of color.  Finishing all that prepping was a huge project in itself, but now the fun part has begun – I can make things with all this “free” yarn.

Where to start?

A few weeks ago I brought a couple of big wagonloads (kids’ wagon, not the horse-drawn kind) of seasoned wood into the house.  We run our fireplace as our primary heat source on days when we will have someone (adult) at the house the entire day to maintain the fire.  I was off of work that day, so I brought in more than enough wood to keep the house cozy, and I brought it in through the front door instead of through the kitchen because it was a shorter (and less messy) trip to the fireplace that way.  In order to avoid tracking dirt and moisture into the house, I put a towel down on the floor, and that reminded me that we probably really should have a welcome mat of come kind at the front of the house so people coming in could wipe their muddy boots.

So that became my first tee shirt yarn project, after the Rolling of The Balls.

I chose fire colors – reds, oranges, yellows, a bit of blue, pale gray (ashes), and dark brown (wood).  I decided to try an oval-shaped rug, rather than the round, or roundish, ones I’ve made so far.

I began with red…

 

I like working on large projects.  They go quickly, and so there’s that instant gratification thing working for me.  Plus, big projects are…BIG!

Unfortunately, I was impatient at the turns, and I chose (stupidly) to ignore the beginnings of ruffles that were starting to form.  And so eventually the ruffles grew so big they could not be ignored, and so I had to pull out a ton of stitches and almost start over completely.

Twice.

Or maybe it was three times.  I don’t remember.  I may have blocked it out.

Anyway, I finished most of it, laid it out on the floor and finally accepted reality.  I’d rushed and not paid attention at the rounded ends, and while ruffles are acceptable on baby girls and pillows, they don’t work so well on rugs.

So, resignedly meeting reality’s eyes, I pulled it all apart.  The whole thing.  The WHOLE thing. 

I had four large balls of fire-color tee shirt yarn.

And I started over.  Slowly and attentively this time.

 

At first I had this kind of multi-sectioned idea but in the interest of time and sanity, I opted for a simple – but correctly executed – oval.

I’m happy with the result.  A bit larger might have been nice, but I’d run out of fire colors.

Why the fire colors?   Warmth and welcome to people entering the house…and because I got the idea on a day when I was going to have a fire going…and because the fireplace is close by. 

You can see it curling up a bit at the edge here and there, but over time that will stay flattened.  You can NOT see ruffles.  :)

~~~

I like crocheting rugs.  I also like baskets. 

A few weeks ago I made this little basket – no pattern, just playing around.  It’s about six inches or so in diameter at the bottom, all single crochet until near the top, where I alternated double crochet and chain stitches to create the pattern around the top.  I finished off with one more round of single crochet.  It sits near the sink in our upstairs bathroom and is filled with hair things – rubber bands, scrunchies, barrettes. 

More recently – earlier this week, actually – I decided to try crocheting with multiple strands of yarn at once.  I chose two shades of teal and some medium gray, a large hook, and I started single crocheting a circle.  Then when the diameter was wide enough (maybe 8”?) I started forming the sides.  I did a few rows of single crochet, then experimented with a sort of wavy pattern of two single crochet, two half double crochet, two double crochet, two half double, two single, over and over for several rows.  You don’t really see the waviness as much as I’d hoped, but it does add some interest and dimension, I think.  And instead of weaving the ends in when I finished, I braided them instead. 

Here’s the result:

Julia loved the colors, so I’d promised her the basket.

Basket.  I did say basket, right?

But, you know, mothers and daughters often see things differently.

~~~

And then, after that very quick project, I decided to go small. 

Right before Christmas (or maybe it was the morning of), my sister told me she still didn’t know what to give me besides canned stuff she and my brother-in-law had made with their garden bounty.  So I asked her for yarn scraps!  I think I will always ask for yarn scraps.

Some of the yarn was hers, and some had been part of our grandmother’s stash.  Our grandmother was a multi-talented woman who played piano, drew in charcoals and pencil, painted in oils, watercolor and acrylics, and could crochet and knit and sew and quilt.  So much talent packed into a small and quiet woman! 

Anyway, one skein of yarn was this strange looking stuff that resembled string wrapped in colored thread.  It’s called “Aunt Lydia’s Beadies Crochet Thread” and apparently Aunt Lydia isn’t making it any more because I couldn’t find something good to link to.

Anyway, I thought it would be perfect to make something small.

Like…a Very Small Basket!

Here’s my awkwardly-positioned left hand holding the Very Small Basket-in-progress.  The hand is there for size comparison only.  Or to make me wince.  Take your pick.

Anyway, I crochet a tiny little circle for the bottom and then started up the sides, all single crochet, until it was the size I wanted.  I should tell you I crocheted into the back loop of the stitches, not the whole loop.  It gives a different look that I have now decided I like a lot for Very Small Basket-Making.

When I decided the basket was tall enough, there was the matter of finishing it off.  I could weave the end in, but it’s actually kind of hard working on Very Small things – my hands, carpel tunnelly and ornery as they are, don’t like working on projects where I have to hold thin things, like the skinny crochet hook in the picture above.  I could have made a little tassle or tail of some kind, like I did with Julia’s basket-hat, but I decided, instead, to make a handle.

And then, after making the handle, of course I still had the tail end of yarn to deal with, so I wove it in and out of all the single crochet stitches in the top row of the basket, and it ended up looking like this:

Wait, here’s a closer look:

Reminds me of the fluted edge of a pie crust.

Anyway, that’s that.  Oh – and in case you were wondering, the basket is about 2” in diameter at the top. 

~~~

So those are some of my most recent crochet projects.  I am so glad I finally learned to crochet, and annoyed with myself slightly (although there’s really no point) for not learning years ago.

I have other project ideas bouncing around in my head, and I’d been looking forward to starting at least one on my back-to-back days off this week.  One one day Bill and the kids would be at work/school, and they were planning to go skiing on the next, so I’d have just about two ENTIRE DAYS to get all creative.

Or so I thought.

   …to be continued…

Where the Laughing Is

I was originally looking for an old post I wrote years ago that featured a little Julia, wearing fairy wings, baking cookies.  I’d written it in poem form, a sort of “Night Before Christmas” thing.  I was going to post that.  But I got distracted by other posts from those same years, when my kids were little and I wrote a lot more.

Anyway, one post led to another, and so instead of the sweet cookie-baking fairy post, I’m going to share a different one with you.  Lucky you – it features both my kids being sick! 

It’s a long post, with a kind of “will it never end???” feel to it at times (much like this deceptively short intro) – which is pretty much how it felt as I went through it all.  Only it’s funny to me now, from many years later.  It’s a bit graphic and gross, but so is life, right?

~~~

March 02, 2009

File Under "The Joys of Motherhood"

WARNING:  THE FOLLOWING POST MAY CONTAIN TOPICS OR GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS THAT WILL FRIGHTEN, DISGUST OR PERHAPS HORRIFY SOME PEOPLE.  PLEASE USE DISCRETION WHEN CHOOSING WHETHER OR NOT TO CONTINUE.

Several nights ago I went to bed at about 10:30 or so.  Eight minutes later (because I looked at the clock) I heard Julia wailing from the kids' bedroom.  Not whining, mind you.  Wailing.  So I got out of bed faster than I would have if it was just whining, walked down the short hallway to the other bedroom, opened the door, and cringed.

She was kneeling on her bed, facing the pillow, and it was quite obvious from the smell that she had vomited.  The other clue was the Laura Petrie "Oh Rob!"-style quavering cry of "I FROWED UP!"

I ushered her into the bathroom, loathe to touch her because it was dark and I didn't know what part of her had come in contact with the "frow-up."  She continued to wail, mouth open, eyes squinty, without pausing for breath.  I herded her toward the toilet, lifted the seat, and told her if she had to throw up again, do it IN THERE.  Which she did.

While she wailed and hurled, I marched myself (muttering and complaining to myself all the while) back into the bedroom, flicked on the light (Alex didn't even wake up) and surveyed the damage.

Ugh.

I removed the rail thingy that keeps her (usually) from falling out of the bed and started stripping the sheets, rolling them up with a pillow, the mattress pad, and her beloved pink elephant, Pinky, who was not just pink at this point, but kind of orangy, with dots of yellow.  That would be the corn.  (Sorry.)  There was a lot of corn, I discovered later.  They must have had that with lunch at daycare.  Lots and lots of corn. 

I went back to check on Julia.  She was pretty well done and just stood there, rather icky, still wailing.  I said mothery things like "shhhh..." and "it's okay, it's O.  Kay." to her, which didn't really do much but they sounded better than "WHYYYYYYYY?" and "OHMYGODTHESMELL!"  I cleaned her up and we trooped downstairs.  I brought the big mass of bedding along with me.  Might as well start washing it.

Julia sat on the couch.  She'd stopped wailing, but was still whimpery, which was understandable, of course.  Fortunately, it was quieter.  I had her scoot over while I put down a towel for her to sit on, another towel on the floor just in case, and snuggled with her under a blanket while we watched cooking shows. 

"Mommy, can I have some juice?"

And thus began the rest of the night.  I foolishly let her have some apple juice.  I don't know why.  I blame tiredness.  I blame wishful thinking.  But whatever.  I let her have a few sips, and just like the sun, it came right back up. 

"Run!  Run!"  And she scampered upstairs, miraculously reaching the toilet before anything else bad could happen.  I told her to stay there (she was wailing again) while I went downstairs and cleaned up the latest mess.  A blanket and a towel.  I replaced them and this time got one of her plastic rectangular toy bins to use as a couch-side bucket.  Then I went back up and soothed her and cleaned her up.  I had her rinse her mouth out with some water and then brought her back downstairs again.

An hour later or something she was thirsty again.  I told her no apple juice this time.  But she could have a TEENY TINY sip of water.

Well, to cut this recap shorter than the hours and hours it stretched over, a couple sips resulted in another round of retching - fortunately INTO the perky pink plastic bin. 

And again, later.

In between all that excitement we dozed on the couch or watched bits and pieces of food tv.  I had weird dreams in between, too.  But finally her vomiting was finished.  All that was left was the washing up of all the blankets and towels and bedding that had been affected.

That following morning, Friday, she was okay, though I kept a tight rein on what she could and couldn't eat.  Alex went to school as usual, and mid-day, Bill headed off to go skiing with three of his friends for the weekend.  A trip they'd been planning far in advance.  I dozed on the couch with Julia, hoping the weekend wouldn't include more digestion-related adventures.

That night at some point Julia crawled into my bed and slept the rest of the night there.  I woke up around five thirty or so.  And suddenly there was a scary sound.  Kind of like the "pbthththt" kind of sound...only...more liquidy.  And then Julia said "I haf to go to the baffroom."  She scurried off and moments later I heard it.  That word.

"Mo-mmmmmmmy!"

Oh no.

"I need help!"

"What's the matter, Julia?"  (maybe the toilet paper roll needs to be replaced...)

"I'm doing DIARRHEA!"

And it's five-freaking-thirty in the morning. 

And sure enough, she WAS doing diarrhea.  She's a smart one, that little girl.  Poor thing.  Soon she was wailing, much like the night of the vomit, only instead of just an open-mouthed wail it kind of morphed into "Mahhhhh-mmmmeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Over and over and over.

Her underwear was...icky.  There were multiple flushings of the toilet.  And - oh no.  Something occurred to me.  I went back into my bedroom, and...yep.  I stripped the sheets.  Remember that "pbthththt" sound?  Yeah.  That.

Anyway, I cleaned her up, brought her downstairs to watch cartoons, and sulked.  I felt HUGELY sorry for myself, and I wallowed in it like a pig in...well, in Julia's princess underwear, I guess.

But then - she was fine for the rest of the day.  HOORAY!  My mood improved.

I let the kids stay up late to watch the Backyardigans and the Wonder Pets on Noggin, then tucked them in and went to bed as well. 

Fast forward.  It's oh, FIVE THIRTY again.  Sunday morning.  Julia is in my bed - don't know when she made that happen - and is lying perpendicular to me, her feet dangerously near my face.  I was lying there with my arms up in some sort of guarding pose.  And then she just woke up, announced "I haf to go to the baffroom." and off she went.

You know the movie "Groundhog Day?" 

Once again.  From the bathroom.  "Maaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeee!"

I helped.  I flushed.  I tossed her underwear once again into the shower and ran it.  She cried and cried "Maaaahhhhhmmmmmeeeeeeeeee!" because it was icky and scary and out of her control and her delicate little nether regions hurt from it all.

Somehow it didn't upset me that time around.  I was kind of numb and resigned to it.  Bill was having his skiiing weekend with his buddies, and I was having...this.  Okay.  I read the fine print.  I signed up for this.  I am indentured.

The rest of the day?  She was fine.

Bill returned home late afternoon - he'd had a great weekend and was worn out and sore and tired and glad to be home.  He'd brought the kids each a stuffed animal (dog for Julia, shark for Alex) and some nice locally-made (Berkshires) chocolate for me.  I fed the kids.  I took a long bath.  Bill put the kids to bed.  We watched some horrible "When Wild Animals Attack People" kind of thing on the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet or something and then went to bed.  I think I fell asleep around ten.

At midnight, or somewhere near there, I was woken up by sounds of one or both of my children in some sort of distress AND by Bill, who does not waken gently in the middle of the night, sitting bolt upright in bed and practically yelling "Whassat!?  The kids!  I think one of the kids just thew up!"  He was oozing urgency but not actually going anywhere, so I kind of snarled "OKAY!" and slid out of bed.  This can't be happening.

But oh, it was.  And was it ever.

(This would be a good time to maybe refill your beverage or run to the bathroom or stretch or something at this point.)

As I rounded the foot of our bed, a child hurried into the room.  And it was Alex.  And he said "Mom, I threw up."  And he started to sort of...urp at that point and I spun him around and sort of shoved him out of the room probably saying something useful like "OUT!" and he threw up.  Right there on the floor in front of the bathroom door. 

There was a lot of it. 

Unlike Julia's contribution from a few nights before, which was a kind of orangy background with many many large kernels of corn in it, this was a pale pink dotted with white. 

I told you it might get graphic.

Anyway.  Much of this initial burst of activity is a blur - I don't know exactly which came first, but here goes.

Alex, as I said, tossed his cookies right there on the floor just outside the bathroom.  I ordered him into the bathroom - he wasn't finished, probably - and told him if he had to throw up again, throw up in the toilet.  At the same time, I think, I heard, from their bedroom (the door was nearly closed) this - a thud.  And then a loud wailing cry.

I stepped over the chunky puddle, pushed open the door and there, in the darkness, stood Julia, wailing and miserable.

"I FALLED DOWN IN THE FROW-UP!"

As she said it I just wanted to cry, but I also knew that at some point I would laugh about it.  Just not right at that moment.

Anyway, I hollered to Alex to stay put, I switched on the light to their room, herded Julia out and then NOOOOOOOOOo - she walked right through Alex's giant chunky puddle in the hall.  I yelled "Julia stop!  You're stepping in it!"  and she immediately froze in place (in it) and wailed louder and refused to take another step.  I'm telling her "go IN THE BATHROOM" but no, all she could do was stand and wail.  I had to sort of leap over the puddle and then reach across the muck and swing her up and into the bathroom. 

Her hair, people.  her long, long hair.  It was...dotted...with...chunks.

I think it was around this point that I looked over to see how Alex was doing and noticed that - being the novice upchucker that he is - Alex hadn't lifted the seat first before making his recent deposits.  The stuff was ALL OVER the seat AND it had splashed off the seat and out sideways onto the walls and the floor.  I lifted the toilet seat and said nothing to Alex because there was no point and he was already miserable.  And drooling.  I wiped his face off and then turned on the shower and got Julia to stop wailing for a moment, took off her underwear and convinced her to go into the shower.  "I DON'T WANNA TAKE A SHOWER!"  "Julia there's THROW-UP IN YOUR HAIR FROM WHEN YOU FELL DOWN!  YOU HAVE TO TAKE A SHOWER!"  So in she went for a minute and then, well, all that running water - "I HAFTA GO TO THE BAFFROOM!"  So out she came, I cleaned off the seat, let her have at it, flushed, waited for that toilet to stop running, then started the shower again and she went back in and stayed put while I went to see how much ick awaited me in their bedroom.

Ick

From the mess, I was able to reconstruct the events.  Alex had initially thrown up in his bed.  (I stripped that, rolled up all the sheets, pillows and the little rug beside his bed in a big, big ball.)  Next, he had climbed out of bed, made it to the end of the bed and then threw up again.  (On the hardwood floor.  BIIIIIIG splash.)  Then he came out of the room, closed the door mostly (thus rendering it dark) and proceeded to puke in the hall and then all over the toilet.  Meanwhile, awakedned by all the chaos, Julia had climbed out of her bed in the dark and made her way toward the door, slipped on the mess on the floor and went down on her butt.  And her hair. 

I mopped up the floor in their room and started collecting towels in a garbage bag.  I also cleaned the HORRIBLY YUCKY floor outside the bathroom.  And the little footprints of it in the bathroom.  And all around the toilet.  And Alex.  And then I dried off Julia.  And then I sent them down to the basement, where all the cool sick people hang.

All this insanity (and it truly felt like something out of "What's Up Doc?" - probably the scene where the hotel room is on fire and everyone's coming in and going out and Eunice yells at the room service guy "FOOD?  I DON"T WANT FOOD!" and Judy Maxwell appears, towel-clad, in the broken window and says "Why, Miss Burns!  Don't you know the meaning of propriety?"

It kind of felt like that.  Only smellier.

So anyway.  Now we're all downstairs.  Sick Alex.  Nurturing Mommy.  And Happy To Be Awake In The Middle Of The Night Julia.

I set up the towels and the slop bucket for Alex and instructed him to aim for the bucket if he felt at all like he might throw up again.  I tucked him in with a blanket at one end of the couch, Julia planted herself at the other end, and I sat in the middle, wondering if I could doze upright.

Julia fell asleep pretty quickly.  I'd suggested to her that she go sleep in her own bed, but that wasn't acceptable ("I can't sleep in my room BY MYSELF!") and so I just gave in quickly and quietly and let her stay.  She fell asleep and stayed asleep til morning.

Alex, on the other hand, wasn't used to this sort of thing, so he was wide-eyed and showed no sign of sleeping.  I kept telling him to shut his eyes and try to sleep - but to lie facing the bucket, just in case.  I'm sure that "just in case" didn't help.  But I couldn't stop saying it.  Or the "try to sleep" thing.  Wastes of breath, both phrases.

I moved over to the chair, propped my feet up on the ottoman and snuggled under a blanket.  At some point - maybe it was during Iron Chef, maybe it was some time later - Alex looked troubled and grabbed for the bucket (actually a green, rectangular toy bin.  Empty.) and, well, used it quite successfully.  I let him heave a few times while still on the couch, but then I sent him upstairs to finish things up in the bathroom, just in case he had any more gallons of the stuff waiting in the wings.  He got a little bit on one blanket, but otherwise he was very tidy.

And that was the extent of it for him.  I gave him a bit of water to clean his mouth out with, but told him he couldn't have any more except MAYBE a tiny sip, because it would make him throw up again.  And that may sound like propaganda designed by a lazy mother, but no, I was quite postitive that anything touching the stomach lining would immediately bring about another volcanic eruption.  I would have bet on it.

At some point Alex fell asleep, and once I could hear him breathing evenly, I felt safe to let myself doze off too.  I think it was after 2:30 or so.  I shut my eyes and dozed.

At about 3:00, the STUPID *()&*&%%^#%$#$*&(&( alarm system went off.  THREE IN THE MORNING!  It was some "loss of frequency" signal that I would have to deal with during normal DAYLIGHT hours when it was safe to call the guy who installed it.  I hit the reset button and silenced the awful thing, went back downstairs and tried do doze again.

Around half an hour or less later the phone rang.  It was the company that monitors the alarm.  They were calling to let me know they'd received a report of loss of ferquecy signal.  Thanks awfully.  I received it too.  Goodnight.

At four I gave up on sleep and switched the tv over to the weather channel to see how the Major Winter Storm was doing, and then to the news channels to see if they'd started announcing school closings yet.  Not many.  I wasn't going to send Alex in to school anyway, but I was also looking to see if the school Bill works at was closing.  After 5:00, when the local news came on, they closings had been updated and yippee, all schools that affected my family were closed.  I changed the channel to Noggin and went upstairs to attempt to sleep in my own bed.

A little before six, the town my husband teaches in called (yes, the whole town called; they're very involved) to announce that there would be no school.  Got it.  Thanks.

Within the half hour, the phone rang again.  Alex's school was closed, too.  Really.  Thanks.

So where are we?  Six-thirtyish?  Those calls were followed, roughly every twenty to thirty minutes, by my children.  "Mommy, can we play?"  "WAAAAAAAAAH!!!ALEXDOESN'TWANTTOPLAYWITHMEEEEEEEEE!" (Well he's not feeling well, Julia, he doesn't want to play at all) and Julia again wanting to climb in bed with us where it was warm - fortunately it was nowhere near five thirty so there was no danger of the whole diarrhea event taking place again.  I said sure, you can climb in, just be quiet because i'm very, very tired.  So she chattered away happily until Bill finally got up with her and brought her downstairs. 

After that I think I slept for a good, solid 45 minutes or so.  Ah, refreshing.  Bill had made coffee - he'd dropped off a cup on my nightstand.  I brought that down with me to reheat it and to see how Alex was doing.  And I regaled my sister and my mother with the events of the night, thus doing my share of providing laughter and entertainment to my little corner of the world.  Or something like that.

I had a nap later in the afternoon, which was mostly nice except for the times I was awakened by various goings-on in the house.  But still - I was sleeping in my own bed, and nobody was throwing up.

Alex has spent most of the day on the couch.  Bill spent two and a half hours shoveling our driveway, our front walk, and the elderly couple across the street's driveway.  We and our friends across the street (next door to the elderly couple) are going to go in together on a snowblower because we're all sick of shoveling.  Okay, I didn't shovel this time around.  And I was so tired - just mentally fried and foggy and idiotic - that while Bill was out there grimly shoveling up the heavy, sticky wet snow I had worried myself into believing that I should be out there too, that staying up all night with sick kids was no excuse, and that Bill was probably cursing me for the lazy good-fer-nothing, couch-sitting, candy-eating oaf that I was.

Except, of course, that that wasn't the case at all.  He'd told our friend across the street, K., who was also shoveling and helped out with the elderly couple's front walk while Bill did the driveway, that "Jayne was up all night with the kids, so (he) was doing the shoveling."  And he went on (in our kitchen, while idiotic tears of fatigue were rolling down my cheeks) to say that both jobs were horrible.  Mine was yuckier and his was physically harder, but both were unpleasant.  And I felt much better.  And ridiculous.

So here we are, it's nearly 7 pm now.  The kids have had their baths and I'll be bringing them to bed soon.  Not sure yet if Alex is going to school tomorrow or not.  I'll figure that out in the morning.  He's downstairs watching some animal show with Bill.

At the moment, Julia is sitting on the floor making strange constipated/growling sounds at me, wearing two sets of pink plastic princess shoes - one set on her feet, the other on her hands.  Apparently she is a "My Pretty Pony" with a serious bowel obstruction.

All's right with my world.

Little Good Things

 

More thoughts of Mom….

We’ve been decorating cookies!  I baked a ton of regular sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies, in assorted shapes, and on Saturday I brought my awesome niece, Natalie up to the house and she and Julia and I (and Alex, but not as much) hung out decorating cookies.  Natalie made the most, and unfortunately I forgot to get a picture of all her mini works of art.  Julia made a lot, ate some, and then yesterday, while I was at work, she decorated some more.

The house above is one of them.

I asked her if we could keep it.  Maybe I can dip it in shellac or something to preserve it. 

Last year I didn’t bake cookies, or if I did, I didn’t bake many of them.  I don’t remember.  Too much going on with Mom.  I didn’t have the energy.  I didn’t have the enthusiasm.  I wanted to.  I felt I should.  But I finally gave myself permission not to.  It’s hard to do what’s best for myself, but I scraped together some sense and did it.

Anyway, the reason I want to keep this house is because it made me smile and it made me think of my mother.

When I was little I loved to draw.  I guess I did pretty well.  My mother told me that, anyway.  I took after my grandmother, Mom’s mother, in the artistic department.  Mom, however, would tell us she couldn’t even draw a straight line.  (Years later I pointed out that drawing a straight line had nothing to do with artistic capabilities, and that she was creative and artistic in plenty of other ways, if not with a paper and crayons.) 

Anyway, to prove her point, Mom told me that when she was little and in school – kindergarten or an early elementary school grade – she was drawing a house and her teacher pointed out that she was doing it wrong.  I know teachers weren’t always as kind as they usually are these days, and I imagine my mother was sensitive to any sort of criticism, which is why this memory stayed with her.

The teacher pointed out that she’d done the bricks in the chimney wrong.  Instead of staggering them like she was “supposed to,” my mother had drawn them in a grid. 

Like Julia’s cookie.

~~~

Here’s another little post from a year ago…

MotherDaughterDaughterMother

December 9, 2013

 

It’s happened before, not just recently, though it’s happening more frequently now.

Sometimes when I look at Julia, color fades and my vision slips backwards time-ways and I am looking through my mother’s eyes at my child self.  I see how she saw me, or at least how I imagine she looked at me.  It doesn’t last for long, it’s almost like a shimmer for a few seconds, and I feel my heart spin back and forth as I am me, then my mother, then me-the-child, then me the adult again.

I am hugging my children harder now.  And I hug Julia hardest of all.  Not because I love her more than my son, but because she is a daughter, as I am a daughter, and when I am holding her I am holding myself from the past, and my mother then, and my mother now.

And maybe myself now as well.

~~~

One of the things my mother, my sister and I have/had in common was our sense of humor.  I don’t know how to describe it, but there was always (and still is, with Mere and me) a love of physical humor.  Falling is funny.

There’s a scene in the movie “What’s Up, Doc?” – well, many scenes, but this one is the one that I think of first – that could get my mother laughing before it even happened.

There’s the scene where Judy and Howard have taken all the bags (and if you don’t know this movie, well, I’m sorry, but you’ve got a big gap in your movie-watching history) and are running from everyone.  They end up in a Chinese dragon, which goes careening through the streets of San Francisco, leaving havoc and chaos in its wake. 

Part of this chaos involves a man walking down the sidewalk.  There is a white fence to his left (our right, as we watch).  Suddenly, large metal trash cans come rolling down the hill behind him.  He glances back at the sound, then looks back again in disbelief and starts running.  The trash cans continue to chase him, and finally, in a desperate attempt to escape them, the man leaps over the fence.  The camera cuts to the other side of the fence, where a peaceful and genteel afternoon luncheon is taking place.  The man flies over the fence and SITS DOWN HARD on a little table, his head flinging back as the table falls over and people are jumping up from their seats in surprise.

Such a little scene, but so perfectly done and so FUNNY in its absurdity…well, Mom would start laughing before we even saw the man walking down the sidewalk.  Real, from the belly, laughing. 

~~~

My grandmother was the artistic one.  And the musical one.  Natural talents, with, I’m assuming, a little instruction at some point in her youth.  The talent skipped down to her granddaughters – my sister got the music and I got the drawing/painting – and my mother got the frustration of not having the same innate abilities as her mother along with having a mother who couldn’t understand why her daughter couldn’t just play the piano easily, by ear.  My mother had to practice and practice.  It must have been so frustrating to have to practice and practice to become not quite as good as her mother, to whom it all came so easily.  It was also frustrating to recognize a piece of music but not to be able to remember the name of it.  My grandfather, while possessing no musical ability that anyone was aware of, loved music with a great passion.  “Emma, play us a tune” was a common request he would make of my grandmother.  And she would sit down at the piano and play all sorts of things.  By ear.  From memory.  He loved classical music.  He loved opera.  He wanted my mom to be able to play the piano like her mother did, but she didn’t have that ability.  I don’t know if he ever realized it, but she was so much more like him than she was like her mother.  She couldn’t just sit down and play a tune, but she could listen with great joy, eyes closed, a dreamy smile on her face.

~~~

Here’s another little post from last year….

Small Mercies

December 12, 2013

 

I woke up at 2:30 this morning and struggled to not struggle to go back to sleep. Please, I need sleep. I finally must have dozed off, only to wake up to my alarm with the detritus of several odd and moody dreams smashing against my eyes.

I stopped at the nursing home on my way to work, about 5:30, and I was afraid I would get to her room and she would be gone. Not gone like in another room. gone gone. It's always there, that fear. It's not going to leave me. And it gets bigger every day. I think it feeds on my nightmares.

She was asleep, and I was relieved, but it's so painful to see her like this: Old. Tired. Frail.

I started this neglected little blog as a place to vent about all the insanity and frustration that comes with having an alcoholic parent. I was probably angry at the time. I've been angry a lot over the years.

And now...now I am heartbroken at what will never be again. I miss the mother I remember from the first half of my life. And, yes, portions of the second half. But alcoholism is greedy. It just takes and takes and takes. And now, there's not much left to take.

But.

When I look in my mother’s eyes now, she is there again. I don't know how long it will last, and it probably won't be very long at all, but for this precious little bit of time, I have my mom back.

Time

This is another post from a year ago.  I just lifted it from the original post – I thought of going through and tidying it up a bit, but no, I’m just going to leave it as-is.

I’ll make sure to let you know when I’m posting about stuff to do with my mother…in case it makes you sad or uncomfortable or anything like that to read it.  I’m not sharing this for reaction as much as I’m looking back at that time a year ago that I barely remember except for a handful of specific episodes.  I may fill in some of the gaps, too, with explanation or other stories.  I just feel like I need to do this – share it, remember it all, think about all that happened, both after her diagnosis and before. 

I’m typing this on a laptop that belonged to my mother.  She wanted it – in addition to the desktop Dell they had – so she could tote it around and write stories from her family. 

But she never did that.  She had the laptop for several years.  I don’t think she ever typed a thing on it.  I found a legal pad with a bit of personal history, but that’s about it.  I have been having moments lately where I try to remember something about my grandparents or some other portion of that side of the family, and for the splittest of seconds I think “I’ll ask Mo-“ and then I’ll stop.  I feel a flare of anger and a flare of sorrow.  Or maybe it’s one flare in two colors.

Anyway, this piece below is exactly a year old, to the day.

 

Time

Mom had an appointment with an oncologist this week.  I worked half the day, then met her, Dad, my sister, and the guys who transported mom from the nursing home to the doctors’ office.

We were crowded into the small exam room – Mom on her industrial gurney (designed for transport in a vehicle), strapped in like Hannibal Lector only without the bite mask, and Mere, Me and Dad on chairs.

I filled out some paperwork that was supposed to have arrived at mom and dads house, contact information mostly, and consent to treat her.

The doctor went over mom’s information…carefully.  Not sure, I think, of how much we knew or what we understood.

She said, a few times, that she didn’t know that chemo would help, that, in fact, it might make mom feel worse.  She had done a bit of an exam, eyes, throat, felt her abdomen, looked at her legs, which were swollen, down at the ankles.

She reiterated that a couple of times.  And it gave me the feeling that there was more she wasn’t saying.  The doctor.  I felt like the prognosis was more bad than good, not that there was a whole lot of good anyway.

She said a biopsy would tell them for sure what type of cancer it is, and that would determine what type of chemo and/or radiation would be best to use.  Radiation was still a possibility because it wouldn’t have the side effects of chemo and it might slow down the tumor growth.

Cholangiocarcinoma is very aggressive.  Who knows how long it’s been growing.

Anyway, it was weird, Mom turned to me a couple times and asked what I thought she should do.  I handed that back to her…it’s her life, her call.  She’s always said she didn’t want heroic measures…and that’s where it stands now.

She’s still scheduled for the stent replacement on the 23rd, and when they do that they can do a biopsy and we can maybe have some radiation done.  Chemo, in addition to possibly not working and making her feel sick, would also involve at least weekly trips to the hospital for the injections, and frequent follow-ups with the doctor.  A lot of travel.

So that was that.  Oh, no it’s not.  She also brought up hospice, and we might want to get that in place as well.

Another little moment – the Dr brought up mom’s alcohol use (or misuse, or abuse, take your pick) and mom said, very confidently, that she hasn’t had any alcohol in ages.  Ages.  Mere and I both called her on that.  We’re the cranky Greek Chorus in Mom’s life of denial.  Anyway, it’s two months, not ages.

So on the way out we shook hands with a woman who’s kind of a liason for patients and the office and families.  Mere talked to her more than I did, only because they spoke the same language – medicare and related stuff.  She – I don’t remember her name – was extremely nice, warm, on top of things.

The whole office was like that.

There are so many good, kind, warm people out there.  There are idiots too – case in point, that annoying doctor from the other office – but a lot of wonderful people as well.  The guys who transported mom – just nice guys.

Anyway.

We all went our separate ways, mom back to the nursing home, dad to his house, mere and I back to work.

And I just kept feeling like there were things unsaid.

So on the way home I called the oncologist’s office and asked for a call back, to discuss the unsaid things, like prognosis.

Dr. P called back a couple hours later, and I went outside to talk because I haven’t told the kids yet.

And she said what I kind of knew, based on what I’d read – that at the outside, with no complications, Mom’s got maybe six months.

But she’s got a lot working against that.  She doesn’t eat much.  She’s anemic.  She doesn’t exercise at all – and this has gone on for YEARS, the fight to get her to walk, to do her PT, to MOVE.  It’s been such a losing battle.  So there’s that.  And the swelling in her legs…the possibility of a blood clot forming and traveling to her heart…the possibility of infection – maybe from bedsores, or from the current stent…the stent could get blocked again, or the next stent could get blocked, which would mean another stent would need to go in.  More procedures – more invasive procedures.  She could fall into a coma.

She could have as little as a month left.

I called her oldest friend – one of her only remaining friends – that night to update her.  It was a hard conversation to have.  She said she’d call me back soon.  She’s thinking of coming up.

I have a few other people to call, I think.  But, sadly, over the years Mom has shut doors on long-standing friendships.  There are only a couple of people who still call the house to say hello and to check on her, on dad.  They get in touch with me if (like recently) there is something wrong with the phone at mom and dad’s house.  Two people.  Interestingly, both were nurses.  That’s not how she knows them – one she’s known since they were five – a lifetime friendship.  The other was married to my dad’s uncle, so she’s sort of a relative that way but not by blood.

But I digress.

One minute I’m fine, the next I’m not.  I have times where I can talk about all this matter-of-factly, without emotions spilling over.  And then other times I can’t even get a word out without my voice cracking.

Last night was the elementary school christmas concert.  alex was in it.  During most of it I was annoyed at this tall kid who showed up late and stood next to his mom and IN FRONT OF ME and a shorter older woman.  I kept glaring at him.  He’s in the eighth grade according to alex, and he is growing a mustache…much like the one his mom has.

Anyway, I fought off my short-person rage, moved to a different spot, and focused on watching Alex and listening to the songs.

And then, out of the blue, during the last song, which was about drinking hot cocoa, I suddenly felt tears welling.  I don’t even know why!  Hot cocoa?  But then, why not?

It’s my mother.  And mothers are everything.  Every little bit and piece of my childhood, just about, connects to my mother.  So why not hot cocoa?

I’ve got today off.  It’s a paid personal day.  I need it.  My boss thought I needed it.  I need time by myself.  Time to be kind to myself and not take care of anyone else.

Time to cry if I need to.

Maybe I’ll go make some hot cocoa.

Indecisions and Time Mismanagement

Okay, first you should know that this is the third or fourth attempt to start this post. 

Second, that admission pretty much sums up the whole intended but unwritten post, as hinted at by the title (which took a mere two attempts).

I have recently admitted to myself – and not for the first time – that I am horrible at managing my time, some of the time.  Not all of the time.  But enough of the time.

I look forward to a day off, or an evening after work, to do something I want to do.  Something creative. 

Problem is, once I have that time, it’s hard for me to settle down or relax and just do that creative thing. 

Even harder is deciding which thing to do.

Because there are too many things I could do.  Too many things I want to do.  Too many things I think I want to learn how to do.  Too many things I think I should do.

How to decide?

I brainstormed a list recently of all the current things that I want to do or should do or whatever – anything that has “do” attached.

It’s a long list.

And it could have been longer if I’d been more specific.  For example, it’s December, it’s cookie-baking time, and so I scribbled “bake cookies” with some arrows pointed at the words because that’s something that needs doing soon.  But I could have, if I wanted to drive myself more crazy, written out each and every KIND of cookie that I need/want to make. 

But I didn’t.

I’m trying to stave off the crazy.

Anyway…it’s a long list.

And though I know I should bake some cookies, I really feel like crocheting something.

But I can’t decide what to crochet.

You see, I have crocheted Julia a couple of elephants, and even though he’s older, I still feel like I should crochet Alex something, like a dinosaur.  So I’ve found a couple of patterns for crocheted dinosaurs, but I’m not sure which one I want to do.

But I also had intended to crochet slippers for both kids.  I traced around their feet and everything!  So maybe I should get going on those first, because it’s winter, or nearly winter.

And then, with Christmas coming, I feel like I should probably crochet gifts for everyone I know.  But I can’t do scarves, because my sister has pretty much crocheted scarves – and hats – for everyone anyway.  So maybe I should crochet…um…something else.  Only I don’t know what.  So maybe I shouldn’t crochet gifts at all. 

I’ll just bake more cookies!

Only I don’t feel like baking…

There’s also rugs.  I’ve crocheted a few tee shirt rugs, and I have been, bit by bit, making more tee shirt yarn and rolling it into balls for future projects.  I’ve got just about all the colored tee shirt yarn balls done, I’m just down to blacks and whites and a few grays.

I also want to make denim yarn from old jeans.  I could crochet rugs out of that, too.

Speaking of making rugs, I saw another way of making rugs that would be cool to do.  I just need the loom for it, but it’s twining, which is kind of weaving and twisting strips of fabric…it looks like something pretty doable.  I asked Bill if he could make the loom for me.  He said sure.  I could probably make it, actually, but I think I have enough hobbies without adding woodworking to the mix.

Speaking of woodworking, sort of, we’ve got this chair that years and years ago my mother reupholstered.  It’s got wooden arms and legs, and the seat and back are fabric (well, with wooden framing and springs inside and soft stuff so you don’t feel the springs when you’re sitting…).  Anyway, the fabric she’d put on was starting to go years ago when I took it with me when I moved out, so I attempted to cover it – with cotton fabric left over from a sewing project – which was rather naïve of me and the succession of cats in my life over the years pretty much destroyed all my attempted hard work.  Anyway, we’re going to redo the chair.  It needs it.  Structurally it’s in great shape, it just needs a makeover.

So I’ve been poking around online everywhere, watching tutorials and reading tips on DIY reupholstery.  I’m feeling pretty good about it, actually.  Kind of excited.  I just need to pick out the fabric from my piles and piles of scraps.

Speaking of all that, we’ve also got this loveseat in the living room that needs attention.  It’s a sort of fold-out affair that we got at Pier 1 a long time ago.  It was very pretty with a large flower pattern that has since become grimy and torn, what with these two children that came along a while back.  A bunch of years ago I got one of those “surefit” slipcovers for it, and frankly, I hate it with a passion.  It sure DOESN’T fit, not really, because the whole apparent point of this line of slipcovers is that they kind of fit, but they’re rather loose, and the website said something like that you just tuck in the looseness of it like you do with your normal slipcovers.  Only, I’ve never tucked in a normal slipcover.  They fit WELL.  I’m tired of the tucking in.  Plus, when the kids sit (sprawl, lie on, roll around on, mangle) on the slipcover, it becomes untucked, and yanked off, and so then half the slipcover is on the floor, and no one else in the house seems bothered by this ugliness except me.  I’m tired of re-tucking.

Oh, and last year at some point, sparks from the fireplace must have landed on part of the sloppy slipcover (probably while half of it was on the floor after one of the kids slithered around on it) so there are burned holes in it.  Very pretty.  I can’t tuck those in or slide them behind the loveseat.

So – I want to make a slipcover for the loveseat.  One that, you know, FITS.  I spent some time recently looking around online looking at tutorials and reading blog posts about making your own slipcovers.  I’m kind of excited to do it.

And then there are the zippered purses.  I made a few of them a couple years ago and I’ve been saving zippers from every worn out pair of pants that I’ve sliced up to salvage the fabric so that I can make more.  I have ton of zippers.  I haven’t made any more zippered purses.  I’ve got several great design ideas, I just, you know, haven’t gotten around to making them yet.  So maybe I should make some.  You know, because of all those zippers….

Then there’s the paper and beads and wire…the pressed paper made of stuff I’ve shredded.  Ornaments and gift tags made from the pressed paper.  And wrapped or decorated with wire and beads.  Or ribbon. 

Oh, and the rosaries.  I make rosaries, in case you didn’t know.  I sell them.  I should make some more to add to that inventory.  But, you know, there are all these other things I want to make, too.

OH!  And then there are the quilts!  I have several quilts that need to be repaired.  I started working on one of them a number of years ago.  And then – ooh look!  A butterfly!

I have some sort of creativity ADD or something. 

But hey, at least I wrote this post!

A Year Ago

A while back I started another blog where I could vent and no one who knows me would see it.  There were things I wanted to write about – well, type, because typing is faster than writing – but I didn’t want feedback.  I just needed a diary of sorts.

About a year ago my mother was diagnosed with cancer.  There had been lots of other things going on with her over the years, things I didn’t write about out of respect for her and the rest of my family, and because, well…because.

Today is my mother’s birthday.  We cooked Thanksgiving dinner at my Dad’s house yesterday, which was the first time in years that that house has been filled with family and food and love and peace.

Anyway, in my other blog, this is what I wrote the morning after Thanksgiving.  I’ve edited it a tiny bit, but not much. 

 

New Territory  November 29, 2013

 

It's called Cholangiocarcinoma, which is cancer of the bile ducts that descend from the liver to the gall bladder.

It's pretty rare, and pretty uncurable.

Surgery is sometimes a possibility, with one in five people living five more years post surgery, but that's only if they're younger, much healthier in other ways, and not an eighty (now eighty-one) year old woman in not so great health who's abused her liver with way too much alcohol over the years.

Chemo and radiation are options, but only palliative.

Mom said to the doctor something like "and what if I just want to...go?"

The appointment was bizarre.  Frustrating.  Funny, in some ways.  Far too long.

The doctor we saw wore a tweed jacket over a medium blue oxford shirt and I forget his pants.  He wore a tie.  And he was about the least personable doctor I've encountered in some time.

Everything's on laptops now, and for whatever reason - I know he had one, it's called "rigidity" - he had to scroll back through her history with that office - all the way to 2007 when she was diagnosed with an ulcer or something - and when my sister and I tried to get him to skip to the present, he gave us this...LOOK and told us something about needing to see her history in order to discuss what's going on now.

Many eye-rolling looks were exchanged between my sister and me during that visit.

The four of us - Mom in her wheelchair, Dad, Mere and me - were squeezed into this little exam room, and the doctor was squeezed into his desk/chair combo, squinting at his laptop and scrolling through notes from the endoscopy a week and a half prior.

He took more time than necessary to read - aloud - every bit of notation entered, AND he would stop periodically to give us definitions, or to talk percentages, or whatever, and he WOULD NOT skip over stuff we already understood.

It was, frankly, a bit of hell.

And plus, we - my sister, my father and me - already knew the diagnosis.  Well, sort of.  We had the gist of it, thanks to a blabby doctor who assumed my dad already knew what had been discovered during all the tests and just spelled it out for him.  Right there at the weekly Rotary Club luncheon.

But anyway, so here we are with Dr. Lecture Hall, as he takes forEVER to get to the bottom line, and my mother was getting uncomfortable from sitting in the wheelchair for so long (we waited in the teeny tiny waiting room for quite a while too, ultra punctual fools that we are....) and she just wanted to lie down or go back to the nursing home where she's been transferred.  The doctor showed no sympathy, compassion, or inclination to move things along.  It was all at his pace.

I wanted to hurt him.

I'm pretty sure Mom knew, somewhere in that part of all of us that just knows things.  Finally, while he was describing something ad nauseum, mom interrupted him with "Do I have cancer?"

He wouldn't answer.  Bastard.

There's a scene in A League of Their Own right before an end-of-the-season game where a telegram delivery guy comes into the locker room and has to deliver notification that the husband of one of the women has been killed in action.  He can't find, on his little clipboard, the name of the recipient, and he says he has to go back to the office or wherever to find out who it's for.  Tom Hanks, the coach, wrestles the telegram away from the guy and hustles him out the door, because really?  Who needs to suffer all that not knowing?  Yeah, the scene was contrived, and I don't think notification of your husband's passing would be done that sloppily, but what do I know?  I just know that I felt, during that doctor visit, like wrestling the laptop out of that most annoying and anal doctor's grip, scrolling through the notes myself, and finding the punch line.  Faster.

Eventually, of course, we got there.  Slowly, frustratingly, painfully, annoyingly, but finally.

And it was anticlimactic.

I think Mom, Mere and I especially (Dad was busy looking at a diagram of cross sections of internal organs the doctor had passed around, so we could see where the liver and ducts and all those things were) were just so sick of being there, WAITING, that once we finally had confirmation, we just wanted to leave.  Stretch our legs (literally or figuratively), breath some other air, get away from this guy.

But he wouldn't see that.  He kept talking.

Most of the time doctors visits seem rushed, even when the doctor is classy and tries to not SEEM in a rush.

This guy...he had all the time in the world.

We also learned that the cancerous cells, which, in this sort of cancer grow in and out of the bile ducts, had grown to a larger size than the initial xrays or whatever had indicated - about 4cm instead of one - and had spread - or appeared to have spread, hard to tell with Dr. Verbose, to nearby lymph nodes and into the liver.

She has a plastic stent in the left descending bile duct, so that bile will flow and her jaundice is alleviated, and the dr recommended replacing this with a wire mesh one, which is less prone to infection and works better over a longer period of time.

But, he tossed in, it still might clog back up.  And putting a stent in the other duct isn't as (relatively) simple a process.

I said we'll deal with that when we need to. 

He still wouldn't stop.

So we've got an appointment now to have that stent replaced on December 23rd.

And an appointment with an oncologist on Dec 4th to discuss palliative chemo options.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving.

My sister and I met at the nursing home just before seven in the morning.  She brought coffees and muffins.  I brought five loaves of bread and the stuffing bowl.

The stuffing  bowl is a yellow stoneware bowl that Mom has used to make stuffing every Thanksgiving in my memory.  It's mine in the will.  That's one of our morbid family jokes.  We have several.  Long-standing jokes.  I get the stuffing bowl, and my sister gets the gold caps on mom's teeth.

In past years we'd meet at my parents' house to cube the bread and chop onions and celery, making stuffing while trading snide remarks and generally annoying each other.  That's how we show love.  And we'd stuff the turkey ("regular" stuffing in the body cavity and sausage stuffing in the neck), and once the bird went into the oven, my sister and I would go back to our respective homes, prepare whatever sides we'd volunteered for, and later in the day we'd meet up again for food.  Lots of food.

In more recent years, Thanksgiving has moved to my house.  There have been times - maybe one or two - when Mom came up here to help with the stuffing.  But fewer of those in recent years.  And I've used other bowls.

But this year, we needed to use the bowl.  I'm thinking it's the last Thanksgiving we'll be able to do this, all three of us.

I feel myself grabbing at things, wanting to...I don't know...make every day a bucketload of memories, poignant looks, tears, love...and it can't happen.  It will exhaust all of us.  So I need to pull myself back.  I go overboard sometimes.

Yesterday was also Mom's birthday.  Today I'm cooking lamb and bringing it to her.  Whoever else is available will join in as well.

But overnight I started wondering if that will be too much for her.  A whole mess of us - husband, daughters, a son-in-law or two, grandchildren - descending on her room, surrounding her bed, trying to summon a celebratory vibe.

My kids don't know the diagnosis.  Not yet.

And I may wait til after the oncologist appointment to tell them, just so I have a little more to work with.

I have moments when I just want to drop to the floor and cry.  Earlier this week, I think Tuesday night, I ran a bath, with the fan on in the bathroom, just to create a lot of noise so I could sob without anyone hearing me.

It comes and goes.  I'll be fine and then some little something will drift through my mind and get snagged on a corner of a memory and I'll be pressing my lips together and blinking hard.

A lot of anger has dissolved.  So much anger carried around for so many years.  Half my life - HALF OF MY LIFE - spent dealing with her alcoholism.  Okay, there were periods of time when she wasn't drinking, but they never lasted, no matter how long they stretched.  And Oh God I don't feel like writing about all that.  But the missed birthdays, missed holiday, or just tense holidays with glaring and hostility and my mother demanding a drink and me trying to keep it all off my kids' radar...

Fucking pain.

And now a lot of that has melted into deep, dark sorrow.  So much time...wasted.  Lost.  Gone.  Empty.

My kids aren't going to have a ton of memories of her.  And that makes me so sad.  I know I'm fortunate to have known all four grandparents - not everyone has that.  But my parents are alive, and are nearby, and the ONLY reason my kids don't have a deeper relationship with my parents is because of my mom's drinking.  And, to be fair, my dad's contribution to her drinking.  Not in driving her to it,  - well, scratch that - he did.  He'd drive her out to lunch so she could have her glasses of wine, or he'd drive to liquor stores and buy her booze.  He helped.  He helped.  But.

Oh it's such a tangled history.

But anyway.  My fingers are tired of typing, and I need a break from this story for now.  But I've been holding all this in for so long, purposely NOT writing about it, and I don't think that's been healthy either.